June 2020

Travel Image of the Month - June 2020 : 'Lost in the Sahara Desert' - Graham Vulliamy

The June Travel Image of the Month competition brought another fine crop of images from our photographic colleages in the UK and abroad, and yet again I was grateful for not being the person who had to make a final selection from those that entered.

What was so striking from the images posted this month, was the increasing variation in the style and form of the shots. Even if you were hoping to have the the quickest glances at the shots, many of them would make you stop and hover over the structure and message that lies behind them.

Some were of the moment shots, that fleeting glimpse of a place and time that is there and gone. A great example of that was David Pollard's 'Village shop in Rajasthan'. Without the little boy carefully trying to hide himself in the left of the shot, it simply wouldn't work.

David Pollard's A Village Shop, Shahpura, Rajasthan

David Pollard's : A village shop , Rajasthan Peter Spring's : Cairo Market

Many others were the result of careful observation of a particular place or scene The way that Peter Spring's 'Cairo Market' was taken you can imagine was one of many shots that sought to tell the story of the chaotic streets in and around that fascinating city. (Even if you can't hear the car horns blaring in the background.)

There is however, only one winner although in this case the judge also selected two other shots as 'highly commended' as part of the process.

This month's winner is Graham Vulliamy's - 'Lost in the Sahara Desert'

Our judge said of the shot:

"The winner stood out for me and there were several images that could have been in the runners up. Lost in the Sahara Desert is minimalist. There is a definite feel for the vastness of the desert but the two "lost" figures, isolated amongst amongst the dunes, make the image, emphasising the scale."

The two runners up were:

Pat Barbour's 'Morecambe Pier' - again minimalist and nicely executed, promenaders silhouetted against, perhaps, a clearing storm.

David Pechey's 'Llandudno in January' - one can feel the cold melancholy of the location. The Interaction/anticipation between the gull and the two figures add interest.

Congratulations to Graham, and his winning shot will be added to the Travel Image of the Month page on the website, with the overall monthly winners competing to be the Group’s best travel photograph of the year.

Click here to see winning images from previous years or here to see 2019 winners, or here to 2020 winners to date.