Picture This

We didn’t know what we’d get from Shutterbug readers for this month’s Low-Light Noir assignment but we knew it would be interesting. And it certainly was! Readers gave us what we asked for, posting a range of dark and moody images that recalled classic “film noir” movies. There were so many great shots, most in grainy black and white but a few in crunchy color, that it was hard to choose just 10 low-light noir favorites but we did. Here’s looking at you, kid!

Photojournalism and documentary photography is a tough assignment but Shutterbug readers performed well by capturing gripping moments of real life. There are stories all around us just waiting to be told with our cameras and readers did a fine job telling theirs. For this assignment, we asked you to capture a scene or a situation that relayed a story without manipulation. We were looking for unstaged images that documented real life in a revealing way. Or to bend the old cliché, we were looking for pictures that were worth a thousand words. And we got them. Here are our 10 favorites.

Shooting sports and action can really put your gear and your timing to the test. But there’s more to a great action shot than simply capturing the moment and making sure it’s in focus. Shutterbug readers showed their fast action shooting skills this month with winning photos that captured a variety of sports, from bike racing to baseball and surfing to rodeo. For this assignment, we wanted to see sports and action images that had great composition, effective use of backgrounds and scenery, and powerful human emotion. Shutterbug’s sports shooters delivered.

Capturing good street photography images can be a lot tougher than it seems. First, you have to be bold enough to shoot candid images of people on the street, most times without their permission. Secondly, in this assignment we were looking for powerful street photography images that captured an emotion or told a story; not just random shots of people walking down the street. Or, to paraphrase the great Henri Cartier-Bresson, we were seeking images that captured “the decisive moment.” With these 10 favorites by Shutterbug readers from the Street Photography assignment, we found them.

For this assignment, we were looking for your best wedding, portrait, and boudoir images and while Shutterbug readers submitted many good wedding and boudoir shots, it was the portraits that really stood out. Overall, we were looking for interesting angles on these popular photography genres and we got them. We didn’t want those standard “grip and grin” group shots from your Aunt Sally’s wedding reception and we weren’t seeking cheesy boudoir images that look like they should be on the cover of a romance novel from the 1960s.

Without a doubt, this month's Wildlife and Nature assignment brought out the best in Shutterbug readers. There were so many excellent entries, we could've easily picked twice as many favorites and still felt we left some great shots out. In the end, we narrowed it down to 10 wildlife and nature images that truly stood out.

Our Picture This! assignment this month was Panorama and thanks, in part, to some recent technical leaps in digital cameras, we received an array of impressive panoramic images. Some were created with panoramic “sweep mode” (in-camera stitch), which has made creating a panorama as easy as pressing the button and sweeping the camera in front of the vista before you. Others were comprised of a series of images that were stitched together in software on a computer. While there was really no wrong way to do it, because the process has become so easy, many images looked very similar. On the next few pages, check out the grand panoramic images we felt really stood out from the pack.