PR46 Photo Challenge: Picture in Picture

Our Photo Challengers responded in their usual creative fashion to our ‘Picture in picture’ exercise. It has to be said that we really dithered over the winner this time around. In the end, though, we decided to give the guernsey to Elana Bailey’s ‘Reflections on the side window at Lavender Fields Cottage’ for its quiet trompe l’oeil effect. We found our eyes being drawn back to the symmetrical composition and the slightly painterly quality of the reflected images in the window. As a token of appreciation, we’ll be sending Elana a Digital Foci Picture Porter 35 250GB portable storage device (RRP $549).

First Place: ‘Reflections on the side window at Lavender Fields Cottage’ by Elana Bailey These reflections were captured in the side window at Lavender Fields Cottage, Adelaide Hills, Adelaide, South Australia.
Our very close first runner-up was Dave Polette’s amusingly clever picture of a picture on his iPad. This is a good example of the kind of ‘why didn’t we think of that?’ creative image making that appeals so strongly to us.

First runner-up: ‘Apple and Apple iPad’ by Dave Polette
Jostling with Dave Polette’s iPad picture for front-of-the-pack status was Peter Armitage’s fun picture within a picture formed by the reflection in a puddle on a rain-slicked street. The dynamism of the image comes down to the artfully placed umbrella.

Second runner-up: ‘Just add water’ by Peter Armitage Puddle in shopping centre car park, after all day rain two days after Christmas 2010, reflection of tower in puddle and umbrella.Taken at dusk just after lights on.
We thought Sabatino Bonelli’s after-hours shot of a salon addressed the challenge rather well. And while the picture in picture concept was a bit obvious, we really loved the intensity of the young subject in Martin Buckingham’s beautifully composed and technically superb ‘Waiting for the Train’. Neville Jones managed to produce the most recursive picture of all with his shot of the original Pug ‘n’ Pine cottage.

‘The Salon’ by Sabatino Bonelli

‘Waiting for the train’ by Martin Buckingham.

The ‘New’ Wilpena Cottage viewed from the original Pug’n’Pine cottage by Neville Jones Most of the original mercury-floated glass in this Pug’n’Pine cottage has been replaced over the years, but this single window has survived. I thought the best way to reveal the imperfections of this glass was to show the straight lines of the roof of the cottage in the distance.
Once again, many thanks to all who responded to the challenge.
Details of the next Photo Challenge are published in Photo Review magazine. Click here to order online or to find out where to buy your copy.