The latest Readers Photo Challenge was an open one meaning that the choice of subject and technique was up to you.
Most of the entries involved the natural world. A few dealt with animals and a couple featured people. Forty-seven photos were sent in by seven readers. Here are the top picks.
First place goes to Tom LaBounty of Stockton, who took his photo at Morro Bay along California’s Central Coast.
His shot featured the small city’s most prominent geological feature, Morro Rock. It’s a 576-foot-tall volcanic plus situated at the entrance to the town’s harbor connected to the shore by a thin strand of beach. With his OM System OM-1 MkII digital mirrorless camera, he captured the rock silhouetted against a fiery sunset. A low-hanging fog absorbed the orange color of the waning sun as does the water of the harbor for an eye-catching image.
Courtney Wise of Stockton receives second place for her photo of a sand cave in southern Utah. The caves were excavated for sand mining for glassmaking in the 1970s. Soft light illuminates the the main opening of the cave and other openings within in help to illuminate the interior. With an Apple iPhone 16 Pro Wise captured the tactile texture of the cave’s walls and pillars as well as its footprint-covered sandy floor.
Steven Rapaport of Stockton photographed swimmers during a practice session the AAU Swim Program at University of the Pacific’s Kjsledsen Pool in Stockton. With his Canon EOS 5D Mk IV DSLR camera he captured Mac Wheeler as he come sup for air while swimming the butterfly stroke in a lane of the pool. Other swimmers follow in Wheeler’s lane as well as lanes to either side of his own. Rapaport used a fast shutter speed (1/800th of a second) to freeze the swimmer’s motion as well as stopping the splashes from all the swimmers in midair.
For first place, LaBounty wins a 16×20 print from UlmerPhoto and a $25 gift card to a local restaurant. Wise receives an 11×14 print and Rapaport gets an 8×10 print. All of the photos entered can be seen in an online gallery at recordnet.com. A new challenge will be issued on July 1.
This article originally appeared on The Record: Out in the open: Readers take and send in their best photos from June
Reporting by Clifford Oto, The Stockton Record / The Record
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