Canon Photo 5 Competition Finalists

That's right, another year and the Canon Photo 5 competition finalists list is woefully short of a me. However, what it's NOT short on is some absolutely fantastic talent! You can check out all the finalists here, but here are a couple of my choice picks. As this is a positive blog in general, I won't be featuring the ones I looked at and went "What the?? How did THAT beat me?" :-)

As I may have mentioned before, there were five briefs in this year's comp. The first one was close-ups of 100s and 1000s. Here is my favourite, the creepy Sprinkle Face by danielh:



The second brief was to capture an opaque liquid in motion. I never got around to shooting an image for this brief, though I had some cool ideas. This image is It Came From Above by ezzz:


Mostly I just love that the liquid is basically green slime and that it appears to start out of mid-air. Awesome :-)

The next brief was something called a Bokeh experiment. It makes lights appear as little stars. I couldn't make it work with my all-in-one camera though I'm not sure why. This is definitely something I will continue to experiment with in the future. Allyeska, the creator of this image, obviously figured it out better than I did:



Penultimately, there was the fantastic brief of a portrait of someone where somewhere in the image a pair of really cheesy black glasses had to appear. I am just in absolute awe of this Black, White and Read All Over by Bloto:



I mean, the reading theme was used in a lot of the entries, but this shot is just astounding. If it doesn't win it's category I will run rioting in the streets and set fire to some expensive luxury cars, all in the name of art.

And the fifth category was open this year to all and sundry and the theme was nearly black and very low-light photography. I actually had a hard time picking a favourite from this category as small imperfections in each image ruined it a little for me. Overall, the one that stuck with me that most and that I kept wanting to go back and look at again was She's Watching She by WillSpill:



I love the perspective and the atmosphere. I know the slight blurring around the face was unavoidable, and perhaps even intentional, but for me it's a detraction.

So, that's this year! I'll be interested to find out who actually wins, and I'm very much looking forward to competing again next year. I find it one of the best competitions in terms of taxing your creativity.

And don't forget to vote if you want someone to actually win!