Picture This

Fine Art Photography: Our 12 Favorite Photos from the Fine Art Assignment

The Editors  |  Sep 13, 2017

Orange Is the New Black
“The photograph shows a construction worker repainting an old tennis court,” Jolanta Mazur explains. “What drew me to this scene was the intense orange color and the fact that the scene looked pretty enigmatic. I took the photograph in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.” It was shot with a Sony NEX-6 mirrorless camera and a Sony E 55-210mm lens at 1/320 second, f/9, ISO 400. © Jolanta Mazur

Fine art photography is a broad category of imagery that can include landscapes, cityscapes, macros, wide angles, long exposures, abstracts, portraits, nudes, semi-nudes, black and whites, color photos, surreal photos, hyperreal photos, nature photos, and on and on and on. But what we were looking for with this assignment were simply beautiful or striking images that showed your vision as a photographer.

We asked you to give us personal images you thought were good enough to be hung on the wall of a gallery or museum. Fine art photography is perennially a very competitive Picture This! assignment and this time was no exception. We had so many impressive entries we decided to pick 12 of our favorites to showcase.

To enter your photos in our Picture This assignments, visit Shutterbug’s Galleries. 

Vicious Beauty
This image was shot “up close and personal with a guarded subject” in Prescott, Arizona, according to Bob Larson. He used a Canon EOS Rebel T2i and a Sigma 10-20mm lens. © Bob Larson

Voila!
“Beauty and grace displayed on this hibiscus flower opened to be admired,” Lorenzo Cassina writes. He captured the image with a Nikon D80 and a Nikkor 28-80mm lens at 1/125 second, f/5.6, ISO 160. © Lorenzo Cassina

Into the Woods
“Sometimes an interesting image can be obtained by deliberately moving the camera during the exposure,” Irwin H. Segel notes. “Another way to introduce motion (used here) is to apply the Photoshop motion blur filter to an otherwise sharp image. The original photo of the trees was taken with a Nikon D600 and a Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 lens. The exposure was f/8 and 1/500 second (ISO 3200). A strong 90-degree directed blur was introduced in subsequent processing.” © Irwin H. Segel

Motel
Nicole Lea Ott shot this iconic hotel sign on Route 66 in Missouri with a Canon EOS 60D and a Canon 18-135mm lens at 39mm, f/11, 1/200 second, ISO 200. © Nicole Lea Ott

Blue Sky and White Sands
“The pure blue sky, brilliant white sand, and the lone plant combined to create a stark but beautiful scene that caught my eye,” Timothy Van Minnick writes. “These three elements seemed to me to be the essence of White Sands National Monument.” The image was shot with a Canon EOS 7D Mark II and a Canon 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM lens at 42mm, ISO 400, +2/3 EV, 1/400 second, f/11. © Timothy Van Minnick

Hallgrímskirkja - Lutheran Church in Reykjavík
Charlotte Couchman captured this low-angle view of a portion of the front exterior of Hallgrímskirkja, a Lutheran parish church in Reykjavík, Iceland. “Situated on a hill in the center of the capital, it can be seen from anywhere in the city,” Couchman writes. “This is one of the first Icelandic landmarks we saw on our weeklong trip to Iceland in September 2016.” She shot it with an Olympus OM-D E-M1 mirrorless camera and a 12-40mm f/2.8 lens at ISO 400, 1/1250 second, f/5.6. © Charlotte Couchman

The Storm Within
“Captured in a single long exposure combined with motion inside Antelope Island State Park, Utah,” Remy Kai notes. © Remy Kai

Obertraun, Austria
Raymond Muzika shot this moody black-and-white image with a Fujifilm X-E1 mirrorless camera and an 18-55mm Fuji lens. It was modified with Photoshop Elements 14. © Raymond Muzika

Through The Hoop
“I wanted to create an image for my son’s bedroom,” Alissa Rosenberg says. “He played basketball and I thought it would be interesting to take some shots of the hoop in my driveway. The sky was full of clouds and taking the ant’s view through the hoop seemed like a more interesting shot than straight on.” It was shot with a Nikon D7100 and a 17-50mm Sigma lens, then processed in Lightroom. © Alissa Rosenberg

Bridges to Nowhere
This image is “a view of one of the bridges to Jekyll Island on a very foggy morning,” David Fischer explains. He shot it with a Canon EOS Rebel T1i and an 18-55mm lens at 18mm, 1/30 second, f/16, ISO 100. © David Fischer

Three
“This is a detail image of a building in Las Vegas taken at night from the roof of a parking garage,” Marion Faria says. “Shortly after this, the security guard chased my friends and I off the roof, so beware photographing from parking garage roofs.” It was shot with a Canon EOS 5D Mark III and a Canon 70-300mm f/4-5.6 lens at 300mm, ISO 12,500, f/5.6, 1/50 second. © Marion Faria

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