"Architecture beats act": this was the conclusion of the competition for the picture of the month of the michelau photo friends. After helmut kober asked for more variety in the picture of the month, herbert steiner and klaus gagel surprised the jurors once with nudes. The hope for front places was only partly fulfilled. In the end, photos of buildings once again claimed the top spots.
Herbert steiner was delighted with his winning picture, which he took in the kohary crypt in coburg. The panorama, which was composed of two shots, impressed with its symmetry and atmospheric lighting.
Photographers love spiral staircases
Photographers are particularly taken with the spiral staircases. If these staircase constructions can also be skillfully embedded in the rectangular image format, the author can almost be sure of landing on one of the top places in competitions. Marlis volker used this insight to take a very stylish photo of the staircase construction in the IG metall building in berlin and promptly won second place with her appealing work.
Helmut kober’s picture of the interior of the district court in berlin was magnificent. The curved shapes with the playful landings, presented in a perfect symmetry, convinced the jurors, who awarded the successful photographer one of the two third places.
The other third place went to peter hartmann with a flying nuthatch. Many other photographers must have used flashes to get a clear picture of the nimble bird as it flew away from its feeding place. Peter hartmann used his telezoom and chose a focal length of 350 millimeters with a wide open aperture. The higher sensitivity of 400 ISO and the natural light conditions gave him an ultra-short exposure time of one four-thousandth of a second. Short enough to capture the bird razor sharp even without a flash.
In the face of such competition, klaus gagel had a hard time getting his pictures to the front of the pack. At least he was able to place all four submissions in the top five of the competition.
Two fourth places were awarded for a photograph of the hamburger speicherstadt and for a photo from the field of model photography.