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Winners from my 3rd Annual “Worldwide Photo Walk” Announced

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Wow—narrowing it down to the winners this year was harder than last year, by a long shot.

Last year, we had some real standouts that you knew the first time you saw them, they were going to be finalists. This year, the shooting and post processing both went up a big notch, and I could have easily made the case for 50 or more honorable mentions, but sadly I could only choose 10, and one Grand Prize winner.

I saw so many great shots, and really struggled between a number of images (some of which you’ll see tomorrow in my special mentions post), but I can tell you this—judging from over 1,000 shots that already won a prize (each won the best shot pick from their local walk, as chosen by the walk leader), made it really, really tough.

But, I won’t keep you waiting any longer; let’s get to the winners and we’ll talk in a few moments.

Here are the 10 Honorable Mentions (in no particular order):

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By Muhammad Owais Khan (Karachi, Sindh Pakistan Photo Walk)
I love the color, the texture, and the post processing, along with the low angle composition and the very shallow depth of field. There’s a story here, and while it looks like they’re lining up for a race, more likely it’s a line of taxis, but whatever it is—I just love this shot!

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By Ron Buskirk (Tarpon Springs, Florida USA Photo Walk)
First, I want to mention that this was taken in Tarpon Springs, where I led my walk, but this shot isn’t from my walk—it was from another Tarpon Springs walk later in the day. I had chosen it without ever knowing it was from Tarpon Springs, because I can tell you I surely didn’t see that boat, and we didn’t have that beautiful light. It’s the light and color that drew me to this instantly. Nice composition, and wonderful color. I love the way the reflection in the water looks like a watercolor painting.

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By Ivan Villa (Albany, California Photo Walk)
This is such a powerful image. The backlit wonderful light, really low perspective, and great story-telling composition make this one of my very favorite photos. The color is just fantastic, the sky is awesome, this is just an incredible shot from top to bottom, and perfectly executed. Wish I had taken it.

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By Minella Rivera (City of Malolos, Central Luzon, Phillipines Photo Walk)
I liked this one the first time I saw it. It’s so simple, but it makes you want to smile. I loved the way the photographer composed the shot, and the clouds are great, the grass is great, and it totally captured a moment in time. Nicely done.

Reflection of Appartment

By Nilesh Bhange (Indore, Madhya Pradesh India Photo Walk)
There were a lot of reflection shots in the competition, but none like this. It’s not just the part that’s reflecting that makes this shot—it’s that the photographer chose to include non reflecting areas, and the two together make for such an interesting shot. I could see this framed, huge, in the lobby of a new skyscraper. Just wonderful all the way around. A very cool shot!

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By Thierry Reboton (Paris, France Photo Walk)
It’s hard to come up with a fresh photo with the Eiffel Tower in it, but this photographer did just that. As soon as it appeared on my screen, I had to just stare at it. It’s such a moody shot, with dramatic clouds and great composition. The post processing fits the mood of the photo. Very cool perspective, and a really good eye make this one a wonderful image.

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By Beverly Eccles (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA Photo Walk)
I love the simplicity of this shot. It’s a still life that has a lot of movement, and it’s a great story telling shot. I love the angle the photographer took the shot from, and I love the way the red color jumps out at you. The shot has a lot of texture, and I just found myself coming back to it again and again.

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By Arkadiusz Klimczak (Rybnik, Slaskie Polska Photo Walk)
The post processing on this shot rocks. The color and post makes this photo such a fascinating shot. The warm tones he used really made this come together, and while there were lots of shots of little back alleys, this one’s post just took it up to that next level. Nicely done.

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By Thomas Münter (Bonn, NRW Germany Photo Walk)
I don’t even know what this is, but I love it. It looks HDR’d to me, but it’s HDR toning done right, and it really adds to an already interesting photo. It’s the kind of photo that makes you wonder where it is, what those cones are for, and how can I get there to shoot them. My favorite HDR shot of the competition.

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By Adrian Gunawan (Jakarta Capital Region, Indonesia)
The light in this shot is just amazing. I love the light on the far left side—like they’re looking at a laptop you can’t see, but nothing about this shot says “hi tech.” It’s a great story telling shot, and the way everyone is positioned in the shot is just so awesome. This wasn’t an easy shot to expose for, but the photographer nailed it, and the composition, and the light, and made a very memorable image. Way to go!

AND THE GRAND PRIZE WINNING IMAGE IS…..

The Gull and the Raven

By Rhys Lewis (South Wharf, VIC Australia)
I knew this would be a finalist the first time I saw it. The tone is amazing, the timing—impeccable. The shadow of the bird, and the way it’s reflected almost makes it look like it’s a different bird altogether. The post processing is great, the composition is on the money, I just absolutely love everything about it. I wish I had taken it, and this is the kind of photographic art I would pay for and hang on my wall. Just an awesome shot!

IMPORTANT NOTE: Tomorrow I’m posting a series of other images that, while they didn’t win a prize, are so good that I felt that needed special recognition. So check back tomorrow to see some other amazing shots from my Third Annual World Wide Photo Walk. :-)

A special thanks to all our sponsors for their gracious support and prizes; to our Walk Leaders who did such an outstanding job giving of their time and talents, and to the wonderful photographers from around the world who created such inspiring, creative, and beautiful work.

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Scott Kelby Author
Scott is a Photographer, bestselling Author, Host of "The Grid" weekly photography show; Editor of Photoshop User magazine; Lightroom Guy; KelbyOne.com CEO; struggling guitarist. Loves Classic Rock and his arch-enemy is Cilantro. Devoted husband, dad to two super awesome kids, and pro-level babysitter to two crazy doggos.
95 comments

  5. Great Shots all around. I can’t imagine how hard this must have been. I think my favorite out of these is Adrian Gunawan’s Indonesia shot. Love the light, love the textures, the people, just amazing stuff. Can’t wait to see more amazing shots tomorrow.

  7. Grand prize winner reminds me of the winner of year one. Both showed great composition which was obviously done “quick on the draw” to capture the birds in flight. I personally had a hard enough time choosing my own single photo, I can not imagine going through over eleven hundred shots to decide on a winner. Congrats to all who participated.

  9. Great pictures, great choices and good commentary on each by Scott. I enjoyed participating and look forward for next year. Thank you for organizing this great event.

  17. I’m sorry, but I don’t think that the grand prize winning photo is genuine. The reflection of the bird and the bird itself are not identical (look at the tail and the tips of the wings, they are different on the bird and on the reflection), and the shadow of the bird is not visible inside the building. I can’t believe that the judges didn’t see that! :-(

    1. i saw the tips of the wings… and seems to be not the same…
      but the photo is still good… but if you look to the sunlight proiection of the pole and the angle of the photographer its a little bit diffrent and it could be the same :D

      1. It is named The Gull and The Raven-which seems to indicate 2 different birds to me as well.

  18. Great job judging Scott, congratulation to all the winners. I know in my photowalk the images were better then they were last year. Seems like that was the case in many photowalks. Maybe we are all becoming better photographers!

  19. @Dominique B. : i saw the tips of the wings… and seems to be not the same…
    but the photo is still good…

    but!!!! if you look to the sunlight proiection of the pole and the angle of the photographer its a little bit diffrent and it could be the same :D

  21. not sure about the reflection of the bird… but i doubt you will see the shadow.
    the shadow of the beams are too broad, indicating the sun is at quite a large angle.. so the first shadow from the left belongs to the second beam from the left…
    this means that the shadow of the bird would be just out of frame on the left.

    reflection wise… someone will have to deduce.

  24. I dont like these one: “By Beverly Eccles (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA Photo Walk)” the rest ar 100% awsome, if in the winner photo is the same bird or not, its still a good photo, but the photo i mentioned… without anger, i think that even mine or someone else ita better :))

  26. It would be great if:
    * You publish the selected winner of each of the walks.
    * You could publish statistics of cameras models (from EXIF info) used in the photowalks !

  27. Congratulations to the the Grand Prize winner … what an amazing photograph! Also, congratulation to all the Mentioned photographers! I don’t know how Scott could pick just one Grand Prize winner! All these photos are Fantastic … ! Well Done!

    Dennis

  29. Hi for everyone :) I’m glad and very suprice, that my photo is one of the best of PhotoWalk. I’m honored that it take the place among those all fantastic photos. Thanks for all and have good night ( at Poland is almost 9pm). I hope to join to photowalkers at 2011 too. bye :) :)

  30. Great shots, hooray to all the winners and a big thank you Scott for sponsoring this event I enjoyed it and can’t wait until next year. I know the choices had to be hard but I think you nailed the decisions. My favorite is the shot of the boots by Beverly Eccles from Philadelphia walk. It is so simple but yet you know those boots are always ready and waiting for the call into action, such an untold story in simplicity.

  31. Hi Scott,

    I am glad I didn’t have to decide. The selection process must have been something else.
    The winner and honorable mentions are all great pictures. Well done to everyone, who participated.

  38. Agree that the shadow of the bird in the grand prize pic doesn’t look right. The white glow around it is disturbing and suspicious. Photo is a fake (my opinion), otherwise it would have been a worthy winner. Last year’s winning photos were so much better.

  40. I know how hard it was to make the choices Scott. I was a walk leader and only had to choose from about 35 entries and I found that difficult enough! I’m glad you wrote why you chose each image. It helps everyone for next year.

  44. Hi Scott,

    You did amazingly well with an incredible challenge. While I have not seen the 1100 other photos, I can only imagine how difficult it was to select the winners. We (and photography) were all winners that day. During our walk, many people asked what we were doing – celebrating the art and craft of photography, of course!

    The grand prize winner poses some interesting questions. At first, I saw two different birds but then read your comments which gave me a different perspective – one bird with a shadow. Do you think you misinterpreted the photo given that the title is “The Gull and the Raven”? Were there two birds or one? Or was the title given because that is how it appears? Can we hear from the photographer? Or perhaps, he/she is enjoying the discussion the photo has created? What exactly are we looking at here? Are we outside looking in? or inside looking out? Two birds or one – it’s a great photo.

    Thanks again for organizing the Photo Walk — I’ll be back next year!

    Ron

    1. I wonder why people are so particular about manipulating of the winning shot. Aren’t lots of posted shots adjusted in Photoshop? I see that as beautiful and very powerful photo. Congratulation to the winner – outstanding shot. Hat down. (also if you go to the flickr link for this shot – between shooting time and posting time on web is only about 1.5 hr difference. Even if it was
      adjusted in PS – Rhys would be another Scott Kelby & Co for me :-))

      Congratulations to all who participated. Next year I wanna be one of you. :-)

  45. WOW!!! What an incredible series of images; Scott I seriously do not envy the job you had of deciding an overall winner.

    Ivan Villa’s image is stunning and yeah like you, I soooo wish I had taken that; very powerful stuff.

    The overall winner is very deserving; a wonderful capture indeed.

    Here’s looking forward to next years Photo Walk; great times with great folks!!

    All the best to you and yours,
    Glyn

  48. Grand Prize winner is completely manufactured. Both the gull bird and the raven shadow were “placed” into the photo. Not only is the shadow not the shadow of the bird, notice that the it is solid but with that kind of sunlight the shadow would have been lighter at the edges than at the center and not as black throughout.

    Sorry, not a fan of the winner given all of the other amazing photos that were not “put together” like that one.

  51. Thank you so much Scott for a GREAT photowalk. We really enjoyed ourselves again this year and our walkers were so friendly, it was like we were old friends.
    Don’t envy your job of choosing a winner with so much fantastic quality exhibited.
    Congratulations to all the winners, well done!

  52. Hi Scott,

    First of, thanks for the idea of the Photowalk it is such an awesome time and experience! I love all this pics but I have to say I can’t help (this is very personal of course and I am respecting your opinion as well as everybody’s) thinking that most of these photos underwent a bit too much of processing… Of course, I am no stranger to HDR images myself or dramatic curves adjustments but sometimes I have to think too much is too much. As a matter of fact this is a thin line but it becomes even more true to me when looking at a group of pictures where a large part of them is “overly” processed compared to the initial photograph. I am feeling strangely ambivalent toward this and perhaps this is just my mood in this early Paris morning but I feel that at one point a photograph ceases to be just that and becomes an image in the way it is not so much captured but engineered. Of course, once again, I am no stranger to wanting to make my pics look better (and thanks to your books and the wonderful softwares around, I get tremendous help and a very significant number of second chances… or sometimes just second look at a picture I would have immediately discarded should have I taken it in the 50’s haha) but I still intend on making it still look “authentic”. I am being a little partial here and understand everybody has an opinion (thank God for that otherwise life would be so boring) and mine may be different in a few hours or days… No matter what, these photographers have done a tremendous job and in the end, no matter how much processing (which has become a full part in modern photography), you can still see a great composition and understand what they wanted to share and how a given scene appeared to them, one that maybe most of us would have overlooked.
    This is why, once again, I would like to thank you for your books, your inspiration and this Photowalk. We share, we meet, we discuss, we love, we disagree… and in the end we simply think and are… in total respect. And for that I am really grateful!
    Cheers from Paris,

    Benoît

  53. Wow, some amazing photography with great compositions and great colours guys. Well done to you all. Must have been a hard decision to make. I would pick out a favourite photograph out of this selection, but I think I’m pretty much spoilt for choice here.

    Well done to all of you once again.

  55. Scott – how about featuring Rhys for an upcoming Guest Blog Wednesday? The person behind the image is often as interesting as the image itself, as we’ve learned from your blog.

  58. Scott, I am honored to have my image selected for an Honorable Mention! I look forward to next year’s walk for another opportunity to meet and socialize with other photographers. Is the People’s Choice voting open to everyone, or only registered walkers? Some have indicated to me that they have voted, but their vote doesn’t seem to register.

    Thanks,
    Ron

    1. Wow……. thanks for that link. I wonder if Adobe sells replacement Patch and Clone Stamp tools separately because Rhys just about wore those two tools out. I thought I did a lot of post processing on my stuff, but the Exif data for this photo is really impressive. Nice finished product, but I wonder what the raw file looks like?

      1. Nice work! I think the photographer has some explaining to do.
        I can see the merit of minor enhancement but if the shadow was not there in the first place to begin with, then it should not have been considered. After all, what is the point of a photo walk if one’s image is mostly created by staying inside.

      2. Sorry for the delay in response guys, I have posted a comment at the bottom of this thread, but it must have been flagged as spam. I have sent Brad an email to see if he can approve it. Look out for that when it pops up.

        Rhys

    2. the time stamps appears to be off…”1st photo of the day” at 2:05pm and then posted to flickr 1 1/2 hours later at 3:24pm….must have processed on the run….

      3. From the exif data.

        Taken on July 24, 2010 at 2.05pm EST
        Posted to Flickr July 25, 2010 at 3.24AM EST

      4. From the exif data
        ————————————————————–
        Taken on July 24, 2010 at 2.05pm EST
        Posted to Flickr July 25, 2010 at 3.24AM EST

      5. no matter how many times i look at this data it still says the 24th for both…i think there is something wrong with the data somewhere cause i just posted a photo to flickr and the time posted was 2 hours before it says i took it…

      6. Hi Guys

        This is the correct details from my perspective:

        July 24, 2010 at 2.05pm EST (edit)
        Posted to Flickr July 25, 2010 at 3.24AM EST (edit)

        http://cl.ly/d1fc0a1aebe342c167e8

        My guess for the inconsistency is the ‘Posted’ time is relative to the viewer, whereas the EXIF ‘taken’ time is the same for everyone. The EXIF time is pulled from the actual file whereas the ‘Posted’ time is just an event logged in the Flickr software.

      7. it crossed my mind after someone mentioned “flickr time” was GMT (? i can’t find it on my flickr page anymore)…so really, don’t count on the times shown for anything…just look at the photo…

    3. Thanks T-Bone. This proves that some people take pictures and others create images. If you prefer, there are photographers and photoshopgraphers. I belong to the first group. My pictures may not be as stunning as others, but they are the real deal, not make believe images.

  62. Congratulations to all who won. Great shots.

    I think Scott should have a competition of his own with couple of categories so lot of people can enter and win. And a section for amateurs non-dslr camera photographers like me ;)

  63. Hi Everyone,
    Let me just first say a big thanks to Scott and the gang, for the support in this conversation, and the comments outlining the concerns some of you have had in regards to the ‘authenticity’ of ‘The Gull and the Raven’. I must apologise for the delay in getting this posted, I have had a very busy few days.

    I will be writing a blog post on the technical, artistic and emotive decisions that were made during the image making process, which will hopefully address all the questions raised in this thread. Without spoiling it I think you will be surprised at what you will see considering how suspicious the lengthly Photoshop log appears! It will be full disclosure starting with the the .NEF right to the finished image. I am still blown away and feel very lucky to have had the stars align for the frame to be captured on the day.

    I have written a short blog post on my site which can be found here:
    http://rhyslewis.com.au/news/the-gull-and-the-raven-announced-as-the-grand-prize-winner-of-scott-kelbys-3rd-annual-worldwide-photo-walk/

    If you have any specific questions please feel free to post them here or on my blog post, and I’ll do my best to include it in the upcoming article.

    Thanks again to everyone for the support,

    Rhys Lewis

  64. Hi Everyone,
    Let me just first say a big thanks to Scott and the gang, for the support in this conversation, and the comments outlining the concerns some of you have had in regards to the ‘authenticity’ of ‘The Gull and the Raven’. I must apologise for the delay in getting this posted, I have had a very busy few days.

    I will be writing a blog post on the technical, artistic and emotive decisions that were made during the image making process, which will hopefully address all the questions raised in this thread. Without spoiling it I think you will be surprised at what you will see considering how suspicious the lengthly Photoshop log appears! It will be full disclosure starting with the the .NEF right to the finished image. I am still blown away and feel very lucky to have had the stars align for the frame to be captured on the day.

    I have written a short blog post on my site which can be found here:
    http://rhyslewis.com.au/news/the-gull-and-the-raven-announced-as-the-grand-prize-winner-of-scott-kelbys-3rd-annual-worldwide-photo-walk/

    If you have any specific questions please feel free to post them here or on my blog post, and I’ll do my best to include it in the upcoming article.

    Thanks again to everyone for the support,

    Rhys Lewis

  65. Hey scott great photos from the photo walk i was ashamed that i missed it due to work. I don’t wan’t to sound bad at all as these photos are great and all is there a way you check that the photos where actually taking on the photowalk I just don’t wan’t to see someone winning a prize that they took a while before hand and claiming it was taking on the photo walk. Well done to the winners though :)

    “Remmember a bad day at the racetrack is better than a good day in the office “

  66. Thank you so much for choosing my photo! I’m so happy, that I could manage to produce a picture, that won a mention. The cones are a permanent installation on the roof of the “Kunstmuseum Bonn” (museum of art).
    I did a HDR development from 5 exposures, which I took with my D300 like I learned in D-town TV. :)
    Thanks again, Thomas

  67. I missed this blog earlier. My congratulations to all the winners & Honorable mentioned photographers. Scott I can’t say in words how happy I am after seeing my photograph “Apartment:Reflection” in your top 11 selected photographs. Thanks really for appreciating it & putting your kind word on it. I really enjoyed this walk & will like to continue. Coincidentally this image was also displayed on National Geographic MY SHOT homepage for one week.

  68. Congratulations to the winners.

    When asked which photo was chosen to represent our walk, our photo walk leader (Venice Beach, CA, USA) gave a rather evasive answer, soemthing along the lines of “well, maybe your photos did not get submitted, but didn’t we have a lot of fun, kids?!” So I take that as a no . . . next year, Mr. Kelby, perhaps you can assign a more responsible leader, as I know a number of our group were there to compete and giving it their all.

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