In just one month, over 8,000 amazing photos (!!!) were submitted to the Your Best Shot 2018 group. Through our process, we narrowed it down to five winners, photographers whose photos emanate originality, creativity, and technical skill. We’re pleased to announce the winners of Your Best Shot 2018 and know you’ll be just as impressed as we are.
Drumroll, please!
“Father and daughter” by Dan Perez
How this moment was captured: “Photograph of my wife and her ailing father in a nursing home in Puerto Rico. I was standing outside the room just watching when I decided to get my camera and snap a few photographs of them together. Unbeknownst to us all, this trip to visit her father in Puerto Rico would be her last. She passed away due to complications from the removal of a brain tumor three months later. This photo truly illustrates the kind of caring person she was. Her father lives on with a broken heart—she will never be forgotten.”
The photographer: Dan Perez is a self-taught, multiple award-winning documentary filmmaker, photographer and overall nice guy. He was raised in NYC and now calls South Florida home. His films have screened at film festivals in 15 different countries and his photography work has been recognized and awarded by the Photographic Society of America and selected in several international photography competitions and exhibitions. Dan specializes in documentary, photojournalism, live music, and travel photography.
Website: http://www.danperezphotography.com
Social:
Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/danperezfilms/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DanPerezFilms
Twitter: https://twitter.com/danperezfilms
Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/danperezfilms
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danperezfilms/
“Walking the Line(s)” by Paul Brouns
How this moment was captured: “Somewhere in Amsterdam, I noticed these horizontal coloured lines near the entrance area of a building. Instantly recognising this to be an ideal subject, I decided to wait for someone to walk by the wall, in order to get an extra point of reference. In the end, a small dog appeared to be just what I needed to match the composition perfectly.”
The photographer: Paul Brouns is an artist and graphic designer, living near Amsterdam in Holland. Rhythm, color, and geometry are recurring themes in his photographic work and architecture has proven to be an ideal subject for this. He’s attracted to abstract, rhythmic expressions of buildings and tries to visualise that as purely as possible. He believes that no matter how the work is made (direct photography or advanced image editing), what counts is the creation of a feast of dancing shadows, sunlit reflections or color combinations that enchant and inspire the viewer.
Social:
Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/brouns/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/paulbrouns
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paulbrouns/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/paulbrouns
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulbrouns/
“Swan Lake” by Volker Woll
How this moment was captured: “‘The swan in South Tyrol, Italy’ [‘Swan Lake’] is one of my favorite images because it started out as a fail. Originally, I wanted to photograph a different location, but learned the day before that the road was closed and I couldn’t get there. So I spent the rest of the day scouting the area and finally found this lake called Lago di Dobbiaco that seemed to have potential for a sunrise shoot the next day. This morning, all the pieces fell into place for me: the low hanging clouds, the bit of color from the rising sun, the mist over the lake and the reflection on the calm water…Believe me when I say, I had to talk that swan into posing for me…Thanks again, Swan. It’s these (rare) moments that make up for all the other more common moments when the pieces did not fall into place.”
The photographer: When he’s not out travelling and taking photos (which is the majority of the time) Volker Woll is living in southern Germany working on software. Funny enough, he met other IT people on those many sunrise shoots (like in “Swan Lake”), so he thinks that landscape photography and software development are just two different shades of nerdy.
Social:
Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/69361287@N04/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chickenandricetales/
“Lonely alleys of Venice” by ines_maria
How this moment was captured: “I arrived by train to Venice in the very early morning—it was freezing cold. I strolled through the streets, the lights were still on in some homes and businesses. After turning into a side alley, peace and an eerie silence spread—it was just the kind of moment I always hope for: in this case, the feeling of loneliness, the dark abandoned silence. Suddenly, quietly, and slowly, these men appeared and disappeared. I knew this was the story I’d been longing to capture.”
The photographer: Ines Maria lives in Vienna and works as an art director at an advertising agency. As a self-taught photographer, her love and passion, as you can imagine, is photography. She believes humans contrasted with our artificial environment (streets and architecture) is a beautiful expression of photography.
Social:
500px: https://500px.com/ines_maria
“Natasza” by Krzysiek Śliwaq
How this moment was captured: “Natasza’s portrait is an example of one of my visions that I have somewhere inside—a simple, classic, close portrait with a bunch of natural emotions enriched by my own patterns of post-processing. Here, I used a dark mood and black and white tones to enhance the perception of her beautiful face, big eyes, and cute freckles. Ambient light made natural and delicate reflections in her eyes and mild skin facture. I tried to catch natural hands setting in the frame as well to make the portrait complete.”
The photographer: Krzysiek Śliwaq was born in 1984 in Poland. He is a solution designer and an enterprise architect in the IT sector working for an international company. He’s a happy husband and a fulfilled father of two remarkable children, who in his free time, takes portraits of young people and sometimes conducts original portrait photography master classes. In his pictures, he’s looking for the real and non-obvious emotions and mood. Krzysiek believes his works are largely a fusion of classic portrait, fashion portrait and fine-art combined with the real charm and authenticity of a child, and with a pinch of dark and intense mood. He enjoys dealing with the two extremes—rawness, naturalness in the message and widely considered in a portrait photography—fine-art. The 80s and 90s, when he was growing up, certainly had a huge impact on his art perception, and he still considers himself to be a big fan of music and cinematography from those times.
Social:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/plumsphotography
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_man_with_a_hip/
We’re looking forward to a year filled with adventure and growth in the Flickr community, and we can’t wait to see your best shots of 2019.
Cheers,
The Flickr Team