Winners of Mini Challenge #116 – The Lone Sentinel

There were so many great images submitted! In my book they are all winners for one reason or another. Thank you everyone for making my first mini challenge one that I looked forward to visiting as often as I could. I had such a hard time narrowing the selection down to a handful. Thank goodness I have extra fingers on both hands. So without further ado...

Honorable Mentions (In no particular order)

ghinson – Surf Sentry
Even though the person in the image is a child and already small, I like how they are small in relation to the rest of the image creating a feeling of vastness. Well composed!



Froch – The Lone Sentinel - Honor
Everytime I see this image I end up pausing to take it all in. Love the composition and the emotion! Very well done. I wouldn't mind seeing a desaturated color version though. (Very small nit on my part. Sorry Paul, just personnal taste. Not meant as a criticism.)


lizzard_nyc – 1.
Very Hitchcockian Liz! I love it. Reminds me of the phonebooth scene with Tippi Hedren in The Birds. I like the composition and PP. Very well done. (Definitely frame-worthy once you clone out the dustspots. Might even want to clone out the buildings in the bottom left.)


davev – 2
I like how you achieved a uniform tone/hue in the image as a whole yet the foreground vegetation stands out because of the depth of focus. Having accomplished this, the white egret is so much more prominent. This is a wildlife photo that I can only dream of taking. Excellent job!


billseye – The Lone Sentinel II
This image works great in black & white. The blackness of the central figure in contrast with the whiteness of the foam, all in conjuction with the mist subduing the background, keeps the eye moving. Making this an image enjoyable to sit and look at trying to take in all of the little details. Excellent work!


And now for the finalists. (SOOOOOOO hard to put these three in order.)

2nd Runner Up
DaddyO – Looking Out
This one is stunning in it's simplicity. Works very well in black & white. The texture of the statue against the smoothness of the background makes the statue feel almost 3D. I also like the cropping and how it actually cuts into the main object. Very nice image!


1st Runner Up
silvereye – 1. School's Out
Christian, this image is awesome on so many levels because of the subject matter. (Let me say "Thank you!" now for what you, and your teammates, do and have done.) Now for the image. The room by itself has so much character and then to introduce the soldier into the mix works wonderfully. The slight desaturation in the colors really helps. Most excellent job all the way around.


Winner
Froch – The Lone Sentinel - Valet
I kept coming back to this image from the day it was submitted. There are so many things that I like about it. I would usually find something new each time that I looked at it. Even though it is in full color and you probably did not do any selective desaturation I love how the orange of the umberella seems to be the one splash of color. I love the small and simplistic stand against the massive building in the background. Makes the stand look smaller and the building look bigger. I like the emptiness of the street and sidewalk. I like how the color of the building compliments the color of the umberella. I could keep going but I might be here awhile. Very excellent image Paul! Would definitely hang this one in my house.


So, there you have it everyone. Another mini comes to an end and the baton has been passed. I really enjoyed the last two weeks seeing what all y'all came up with trying to match an image with a given title. I hope you had as much fun as I did. Thank you so much for playing along.
— Kevin