silhouettes

A photo competition for March!


Flax against the dawn. Lake Wanaka.

Okay, I've got a bit of a thing for silhouettes at the moment, so I thought it'd make an excellent competition theme this month. There, pretty simple then: silhouettes.

If you submit the winning entry, you'll win yourself a 12" Fracture courtesy of the wonderful guys at Fracture. (And if you've not checked out their work, then you should!)

The competition opens today (Thursday 8 March) and closes on Thursday 29 March. Entries need to go into the Small Aperture Flickr pool, but please remember that it's one submission per person.

I've reproduced The Rules, in case you need to refer to them, but otherwise, good luck! (And don't forget, if you follow @SmallAperture on Twitter, you get up-to-date competition and other photographic news!)

The Rules

  • If you decide to enter, you agree to The Rules.
  • You can’t be related to either me or Haje to enter.
  • One entry per person – so choose your best!
  • Entries need to be submitted to the right place, which is the Small Aperture Flickr group.
  • There’s a closing date for entries, so make sure you’ve submitted before then.
  • You have to own the copyright to your entry and be at liberty to submit it to a competition. Using other people’s photos is most uncool.
  • It probably goes without saying, but entries do need to be photographs. It’d be a bit of strange photo competition otherwise.
  • Don’t do anything icky – you know, be obscene or defame someone or sell your granny to get the photo.
  • We (that being me and Haje) get to choose the winner and we’ll do our best to do so within a week of the competition closing.
  • You get to keep all the rights to your images. We just want to be able to show off the winners (and maybe some honourable mentions) here on Pixiq.
  • Entry is at your own risk. I can’t see us eating you or anything, but we can’t be responsible for anything that happens to you because you submit a photo to our competition.
  • We are allowed to change The Rules, or even suspend or end the competition, if we want or need to. Obviously we’ll try not to, but just so that you know.

If you've any questions, please just ask!

March photo competition winner!

Champagne copy

Ladies and Gentlemen, you made it very hard for us in March. Very hard indeed. With so many awesome entries, Haje and I tossed potential winners back and forth across the globe for a week. You impressed us with the variety of your horizons; from dawns to moons, cityscapes to rural desertion. There were silhouettes and HDR, and very clever interpretations of the theme. Eventually, though, we found a victor. So please, raise your glasses (or maybe it should be tots of rum) to March’s winning picture:

Sailing into the Sunset

Many congratulations to Joe for his gloriously warm horizon, Sailing into the Sunset. Please drop me an email so that I can put you in touch with the marvellous people at Fracture, to sort out your prize.

Thank you to everyone who entered; you’ve done yourselves proud. April’s competition is coming up very soon, and we’re really looking forward to seeing what you guys submit to that.

10 scintillating shadows and silhouettes

Poolside shadow ii

Bad shadow can ruin a picture: you’ve obliterated what you were supposed to be looking at, or mysteriously zombified your subject. But sometimes, good shadow can make a picture, making it that bit more interesting. Other times, shadow is the picture. I’ve been taking a look around for shadowy and silhouette-comprised pictures that I think might be worth a second look. What do you think?

1 – Autumn Cycle

Autumn Cycle, by moriza (Mo Riza)

2 – World’s Favorite Sport

World's Favorite Sport, by vramak (Rama V)

3 – Shadow Rider

Shadow Rider, by lowjumpingfrog (John Norton)

4 – Dance When No One’s Watching

Dance When No One's Watching, by vramak (Rama V)

5 – Discovering her shadow!

Discovering her shadow!, by Just Taken Pics (Ste Elmore)

6 – pre-dawn silhouette

pre-dawn silhouette, by switchstyle

7 – Me and my shadow

Me and my shadow, by jronaldlee (James Lee)

8 – It takes a long time to grow young

It takes a long time to grow young, by nattu

9 – Love is…

Love is..., by lovelypetal

10 – Shadows

Shadows, by Xavi Talleda

All photos used in this article are used as ‘fair dealing‘. If you have strong reservations against your photos appearing on Small Aperture, please contact us, and we’ll get them taken down. Please support the artists creating these photos by clicking on the photos to take a closer look at their work!