At the time we set this Photo Challenge Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria were all experiencing terrible floods. Natural disasters were therefore much in our minds and we thought the power of nature would make a great challenge. To our surprise though, entries were down on their usual numbers. Were people all disastered-out? Was the basic concept just too vague? We’ll never know the answer, but happily we still received some fine work from our creative contributors.

 

At the time we set this Photo Challenge Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria were all experiencing terrible floods. Natural disasters were therefore much in our minds and we thought the power of nature would make a great challenge. To our surprise though, entries were down on their usual numbers. Were people all disastered-out? Was the basic concept just too vague? We’ll never know the answer, but happily we still received some fine work from our creative contributors.

Pene Stevens posted three variations on a lightning theme in the Challenge 47 gallery and while all were similarly good, we liked the aptly named Nature’s Power best. Lightning photography obviously entails a fair amount of luck and of the three images, this one had the best balance of exposure and lightning pattern.

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First place: ‘Nature’s Power’ by Pene Stevens.

Our first runner-up guernsey goes to John Tarlinton for the moody and somewhat foreboding study he calls Approaching Storm.

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First runner-up: ‘Approaching Storm’ by John Tarlinton.
At the opposite end of the scale, so to speak, was second runner-up Peter Armitage’s nicely-timed picture of a potter wasp at work, entitled Providing for perpetuation.

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Second runner-up: ‘Providing for perpetuation’ by Peter.
Staying in the macro realm, but illustrating nature’s extraordinary power just as clearly, is our honourable mention for this issue, Puffball Power by Dion Steven.

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Honourable mention: ‘Puffball Power’ by Dion Steven.
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.