Photo Challenge

We asked for natural world patterns that arise from a clear repetition of nearly identical shapes or colour values.

Our Film Noir challenge asked photographers to imagine they were stills shooters on the set of The Big Sleep, Double Indemnity or some other classic of the noir genre…

Pattern and repetition is an enduring visual concept that long predates photography. (Think of the geometric designs on pottery from thousands of years ago for instance.)

Our winner Susan Shanta knows all about how to use the relationship between the out-of-focus and in-focus areas of a photograph to make the latter the star of the show.

Many would say that the most common picture-taking mistake of all is failing to get close enough to the subject.

Good photographers learn early to get in close to their subjects to maximise visual impact. Our challenge asks you to find and frame a photographic subject you like – and then, to move in tight. Very tight…

If the response to our silhouette challenge is anything to go by, you’d have to say that finding interesting, largely featureless black shapes to photograph can be a real tonic for image makers’ imaginations…

Our ‘Tale of Two Frames’ challenge asks you to create two images which are related in some way to each other. The extra twist is that one picture should have a horizontal aspect ratio and the other should be a vertical composition…

Ingrid Makowski captured her winning picture in outback WA…

It isn’t often we ask our Photo Challengers to minimise the detail of their chosen subject to the greatest extent possible. But of course that’s just exactly what a silhouette is: a solid, featureless (usually pure black) shape that is nevertheless easily recognisable…