July Image of the Month

The actual best image of the month is reserved for a book I'm working on.

Second runner up

This batch of lilies have been catching my eye for weeks. I love the profusion of that colour, the different stages of blossom, the shapes, everything.

First runner up

Some of you may have seen this before. Pretty well any photo of a dragonfly in flight gets consideration for image of the month, just on difficulty points alone.

Image of the month

An unusual image, yes. Silhouette portraits were popular before photography as an inexpensive way for ordinary people to capture someone's likeness. Black and White photography was the only thing before colour film was developed, and for a while only B&W were considered 'art', while colour was aimed at the cheap and popular market. 

This image was a happy accident, driven by necessity. I was standing in brilliant sunshine, shooting a subject in the shade, with the yellow stucco wall beside her also in brilliant sun. It took a few shots to dial in settings. But in the mean time, I ended up with this, and had fun playing with it to get just the right balance of light. In my version I can just see hints of light on her instrument. No idea what the JPEG and web will do to what you're seeing.