Polar Obsession Book Winners

Last week, when I posted the review of Polar Obsession, I also mentioned that we had two copies of the book to give away. In order to win a book, you had to post a photo or a Flickr Gallery having to do with the polar regions. We had a few entries in each category, so I picked one from each to receive a copy of the book.

You'll find the winners of the contest below with their own comments before the image and my comments after. The books are in the mail for these two, but the rest of you can still grab a copy of your own. It's definitely one of my top recommendations this year, and the price is quite reasonable considering the size of the book and the content it holds.

PHOTO ENTRY

Photo by João Almeida — “This one’s at Jokulrsarlon, the mythical glacier lagoon in South Iceland, and was taken in a very stormy morning when the weather cleared up a bit.”

This is a great landscape/seascape/icescape photo from João. Lovely cold blues and whites broken up by the dark patches of Earth. The mixture of ice and soil brings a new dimension to the foreground — lots of direction changes for the eye to follow, and the bands of high contrast are intriguing. The composition is broken up nicely by the water near center and the line of hills in the background.

GALLERY ENTRY

Gallery by Andrew Ferguson — “I've specifically avoided using any photos involving people or animals to help enhance that feeling of being utterly, beautifully alone. The decision to use primarily blue photos, as well as the colour shift as you scroll down, were also conscious. I wanted to capture the feel of the way you sometimes notice the shifting weather on a long winter walk.”

This is an extremely eye-catching and well thought-out gallery from Andrew. Each photo stays directly on topic with his intent, and he didn't fill it to the max of 18 photos just for the sake of filling it. Andrew wanted to convey a feeling of seclusion (which is what he titled the gallery) and did so with beautiful photos. I'm also impressed with the amount of thought and effort Andrew put into this Gallery by making comments and observations about each of his selections.