Thanks everyone for submitting such excellent images in the middle of a busy holiday season. There were many images with strong backgrounds, and some with strong foregrounds, but I was looking for images that contained both and where foreground and background played off one another. Images seemed to fall into classes:
THESE IMAGES BENEFIT FROM VIEWING IN LARGE SIZE; PLEASE CLICK ON THEM FOR THAT.
Roads, tracks:
Jeroen Bosman:
Markus Grompe:
Bring you in from the top:
Juan Leon:
Jasja van Leeuwen:
Unusual interpretation:
Peter Stubley:
Shadows:
Peter Stubley:
Additional honorable mentions:
J Rayner:
[urlhttp://www.pbase.com/raynerj/image/89464954][/url]
Sandi Whitaker:
Andrewd_za (must be seen as larger image):
Joe Marquez: (again, please click to see larger image):
Jeroen Bosman:
Finalists:
While the first two of these have repetitive elements in the foreground, I felt that they were distinctive enough in terms of catching the eye and leading me deep into the picture, where other elements maintained my interest.
Third place: Terry Bowlker. This is a perfect travel image; draws you in and leads you to a foreign land:
Second place: Dennis Camp. This one must be viewed large to appreciate the brilliance and color of the light on the tracks in the foreground. Well seen Dennis!
Jaac: The sheer creativity of vision and power of this image truly depict for me how photography can draw you into another world. The image also represents how much beauty can be wrested from the mundane; a crowded street in a typical residential section of a city or town. This could be taken anywhere. Also, the streaks in the sky add to the composition. At 1/4000s they can't be planes; I don't know what they are, but they work.
Jaac: the next contest is up to you!