First Prize Winner: Susan Ramdin

Title: Ferns In The Rain

I went to the Canaan Valley on a workshop with the Cuyahoga Valley Photographic Society in October of 2014 to photograph the fall colors in various locations. On the day this was taken it was non-stop rain so it was a real challenge. The plus was that the rain really saturated the colors of the beautiful landscape. I had never seen so many ferns this orange! This image was taken along the bank of the Blackwater River. The equipment that I used: Canon 5 D ii with a Canon 24-105mm lens at 24mm on a Manfrotto 498RC2 tripod. I exposed at 1/25, f 16 and ISO 250.

Second Place Winner: Thomas Piekunka

Title: Sierra Sunrise

I used my Canon 5DIII with 16-35 F/2.8L lens on a Gitzo tripod with Kirk Enterprises BH-1 ball head, ISO 100, F/8.0 +0.33, 2.5 sec exposure (there was a light breeze and I wanted to capture some movement in the grasses).

North of the Alabama Hills near Lone Pine, California is an area called Moffett Ranch, which has a beautiful variety of grasses, chaparral and trees. The area is easy to access from either Moffett Ranch Road off Hwy 395 or if you follow the main dirt road North out of the Alabama Hills. Observing the layers and colors of the grasses and shrubbery, I pulled off the side of the dirt road and explored, finding this composition. The transition from grasses to trees to the jagged mountains in the background and finally the soft pink clouds in the sky just made for a serene image that I thought captured the delicate beauty of the scene.

Third Place winner: Emmanuel Verzura

Title: Up Is Down

After discovering the south of Switzerland we go to Italy, visiting the Como and Garda lakes and finally decided to finish our trip in dolomity mountains.

Registered in UNESCO world heritage, dolomity is a mountains range as known as pink mountains based in north of Italy. There are many spots but all distant from each other and furthermore, we can stay there only 4 days. (Min 1 week recommended).

I finally found an impressive lake which reflects a great mountain in intense blue/green colored water. It was just incredible! I had to wait there during 4 days to have the good weather conditions, meeting outstanding photographers even during the night, trying to catch the moon reflect and the milkyway. Magic moment…

Its 5 pictures merged together with a 5DMKII and 17-40mm. F5.6 for the foreground and 16 for the background.

Carezza lake, Italy.

People's Choice: Artur Szczeszek

Title: Blurry Forest

Photo is taken in local forest which is called Great Wood, part of Quantock Hills:an area of outstanding beauty in Somerset. I bought my first DSLR camera just year ago and I try to take a photo of anything but this spot in the forest caught my attention. It reminds me pictures from Redwood National Park in USA which I really like. I decided to add some motion blur to the top part of photo to cover some sky and I think it is suitable for this kind of photography.

Equipment: Nikon D7100 , nikkor 18-55mm kit lens(only) , tripod , no filters. Editing software: Lightroom and Photoshop.

Camera settings: ISO 100 | 27mm | f/13 | 20 sec