The best pictures from October's entry
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(November's competition is now closed)
A dozen of our Olympus UK-sponsored Greek Gods photo competition entries from last month, based on the theme of the ancient Greek god of Hermes, attracted the judges' attentions in particular and they are displayed in a
gallery below, but the clear winner was Chris Roberts' "Swan in Scotland".
Swan in Scotland
Chris is from Wales, but his picture was taken in Scotland. Chris explained: "My photograph was taken in Scotland this year and is based on Hermes' wings in the body of a swan."
As winner of the second month of our year-long Olympus-sponsored photo contest, Chris nets £500 worth of Olympus equipment of his choosing from his local Olympus Photo Imaging Experts (PIX) dealer, which is Cameraland, Royal Arcade, Cardiff.
Chris' picture also goes forward to the grand finale next summer to find the overall champion, who will win a £2,000 luxury holiday in Greece, courtesy of Olympus UK.
In Chris' picture, the perspective of the platform disappearing into the water, the reflection of the detailed sky in the still water and, of course, the swan's back-lit outspread wings all conjure up a magical scene.
Two of our three judges placed Chris first and the other, our guest judge for this month,
Simon Joinson, prolific book author and editor of
Total Digital Photography magazine, placed him second.
Simon's number one choice was a mesmerising picture of a hummingbird entered by Gregor Rankin. Gregor, who comes from Glasgow, took the picture in South America.
"I took this in the Costa Rican cloud forest at Monte Verde – it's slightly cropped from the original," explained Gregor.
Hummingbird
Simon commented: "The hummingbird image jumped out from the rest of the entries. It shows both technical mastery and a careful eye for composition, but most of all I felt it fitted the brief perfectly. Top notch!"
Overall the quality of October's entries was a very encouraging improvement over
September, which certainly made judging tougher.
Here is the thumbnail gallery of the twelve pictures that comprised the three judges' top five choices. Just click on a picture to see it displayed larger. If you are interested in entering this month's competition, click here.
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