Staff

Anyone who has walked the streets with a camera (or a smartphone) has witnessed scenes of everyday life that seem too good to pass up for a photograph. But how often do you stop and actually capture them? That’s the trick to great street photography: you’ve got to be ready and you need to have no fear of shooting candid images of people on the street, most times without their permission. But there’s another type of street shooting that can be a little less stressful and that’s urban landscape photography. For this assignment, we asked you to think of your town or city as an urbanized Grand Canyon and to look for unique angles and great lighting to capture the architecture and setting.

What makes a great travel photo? Many things, of course, but we’ve found the best images always tell some sort of story. For this assignment, we weren’t simply looking for pretty pictures from a vacation. Beautiful photos are all well and good but they’re a dime a dozen these days. Instead, we were seeking unique travel photos that included some interesting elements in the frame to give a sense of place or context. We wanted to imagine we were standing right beside the photographer, whether they were taking a photo on a dusty street in Marrakesh, or turning their camera toward a vast plain in Montana. While neither of those locales are featured in our 10 favorite images from readers, the places that are presented here look pretty awesome.

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Ok, maybe not tigers this month but the other two made the cut in some of the winning photos for this assignment. Wildlife and nature are favorite subjects for Shutterbug readers and, as expected, we reviewed a ton of amazing images from readers in these categories. The tough part was narrowing it down to just six favorites but we think we’ve picked some fabulous images to spotlight here.

For this month’s assignment, we asked you to think outside the box about winter photography. While photos of snowmen and sledding are nice, we were looking for images that captured the true splendor of the season’s power and beauty. We wanted to see photos of winter with a sense of wonder and you delivered. Here are our nine favorite images of winter from Shutterbug readers.