Picture This

If you think about all the people snapping shots of their favorite meals with their smartphones these days, you might say food photography is one of the more popular imaging genres right now. But while many of these phoned-in food photos end up on Instagram and other social networks, most of the images are downright unappetizing.

Photojournalism and documentary photography is a tough assignment but Shutterbug readers performed well by capturing gripping moments of real life. There are stories all around us just waiting to be told with our cameras and readers did a fine job telling theirs. For this assignment, we asked you to capture a scene or a situation that relayed a story without manipulation. We were looking for unstaged images that documented real life in a revealing way. Or to bend the old cliché, we were looking for pictures that were worth a thousand words. And we got them. Here are our 10 favorites.

Capturing good street photography images can be a lot tougher than it seems. First, you have to be bold enough to shoot candid images of people on the street, most times without their permission. Secondly, in this assignment we were looking for powerful street photography images that captured an emotion or told a story; not just random shots of people walking down the street. Or, to paraphrase the great Henri Cartier-Bresson, we were seeking images that captured “the decisive moment.” With these 10 favorites by Shutterbug readers from the Street Photography assignment, we found them.

Despite all the advancements in digital imaging, classic black-and-white photography never goes out of style. Shutterbug readers proved that this month with a stunning array of monochrome images submitted for this assignment. Our 10 favorite photos weren’t simply black and white just for black and white’s sake, they all used the dramatic impact of monochrome in a powerful way.

This assignment was simple but it was also highly competitive. Yes, we received many lovely landscape photos in our Picture This! gallery on Shutterbug.com, but we were looking for something extra special. And we got it, with these 10 images from readers offering incredible and unique vistas.

Shutterbug readers got super artsy with this month’s Fine Art Photography assignment and the results were stunning. While it may be hard to precisely describe what fine art photography is, the 10 images we chose this month all struck us as being gallery-worthy. These shots display a firm vision, a great eye, a keen knowledge of forms, and, overall, an appreciation of the abstract beauty of the natural and man-made world.

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.