This is the winning image for Alien Skin’s latest Photo of the Month contest. The photo-sharing theme of last month’s contest was geometry. Congratulations goes to Eduardo Barbosa.

Judge

Our guest judges for this month’s contest were photographers Kevin Mullins and Kyle Ford.

About the winning photo, Kevin Mullins said, “This is a really beautiful image and reminds me a lot of the artwork of Giorgio Morandi. Like Morandi, this photographer has a great appreciation of light, composition and structure. The delicate nature of the objects in the image contrast nicely with the more brutal background and the editing to hold the image together. It’s a really beautiful photographic study.”

For Kyle, “a combination of wonderful composition, lighting, and simplicity drew me immediately to this image. The processing makes my mind double-take to see if it was actually a painting.”

Winner

We connected with Eduardo Barbosa. Learn more about him, below.

How did you get into photography?

I am an amateur photographer. I started getting into photography as a hobby back in the early 80’s, with a Pentax KX. At that time, I took one basic B&W photography course, which included darkroom processing. I subsequently set up a small darkroom in my basement, and further explored the zone system, B&W and some color development. A couple of years later I sold my darkroom equipment and did less photography. With the digital photography age, I went back to it with even more interest. The possibilities now are so great.

How would you describe your style?

I enjoy many styles of photography, but most of my photographs cover nature, urban and abstracts. As far as composition, I tend to go for simple graphic arrangements: everything can be imagined as lines, shapes, volumes and arranged in the camera viewer for a stronger visual expression. I have recently developed an interest in the old masters’ style, and started doing some studio portraits and still life inspired by that era.

How do you stay inspired or connected?

I often visit 500px, Digital Photography Review, specific Facebook user groups (among which is the Alien Skin Exposure user group), and I watch YouTube/Vimeo videos. Pinterest also leads me to great photo sites.

How has Alien Skin’s software changed how you process photos?

Exposure is the best tool I know for film emulation. I always go to Exposure for the special atmosphere it gives to the images. I use Exposure most of the time as a plug-in for Lightroom or Photoshop. On indoor people shots with flash (even with proper diffusion), I find that the shadow gradations are a lot better on the RAW files opened with Exposure than the ones opened with Lightroom.

My typical workflows:
– basic adjustments in LR, PS if layer work, then Exposure and back to LR.
– Indoor people shots with flash: all processing done with Exposure

See more of Eduardo’s work on 500px or Facebook.

Runner Ups

There were so many great photos shared last month. Below are just a few of them. Thanks everyone who shared!

Prizes

Photo of the Month award winners receive a few choice items from Alien Skin Software. They get one of our super soft tri-blend t-shirts and all our photography software.

Monthly Theme

The monthly photo-sharing theme for July is Carefree. Enter the contest this month by sharing your best work for this topic before the first of August.

Stay connected with all of the submissions to the contest in the Exposure and Snap Art users groups on Facebook. The announcement posts are pinned at the top of the groups near first day of each month. There are friendly reminders of the group’s posting rules, which I encourage everyone to take a look at.