Thank you to all the photographers that shared their inspiring shots into the Faces Photo Contest. The entries are breathtaking and the top finalists share a beautiful story behind each one of the photos. A big thank you to Focal Press for their collaboration in this contest. Focal Press has been a leading publisher of Media Technology books for over 75 years. We provide essential resources for professionals and students in many areas including: audio, film and digital video production, photography and digital imaging, animation, broadcast, theatre and web design. We are committed to publishing high quality books filled with practical hands-on information, dealing with cutting-edge and converging technologies from the experts in the field. Visit MasteringPhoto.com – A blog powered by Focal Press.

A big thank you to guest judge Martin Evening. Inducted into the Photoshop Hall of Fame in 2008, Martin Evening is an internationally renowned professional photographer. Working principally on studio-based beauty photography, Martin uses Photoshop to retouch or manipulate to some degree nearly every image he produces. This regular everyday experience with the software has enabled him to gain extensive specialist knowledge of Photoshop.

Grand Jury Winner

"There was a high standard among all the finalist entries, which made it hard to choose the best three photographs, but this particular photograph stood out as the clear winner. It’s clearly a setup shot, but looks like an authentic documentary style portrait. The lighting and black and white tones remind me of the work of classic portrait photographers such as Yosuf Karsh. " - Martin Evening

Runner Up

"I chose this photograph as a runner-up because it works so well as a fashion portrait. I liked the styling, the choice of model, the natural light and soft colour palette, but also the composition and framing. It looks like the result of a great team effort." - Martin Evening

Runner Up

"This is another deserving runner-up. I like the use of natural daylight and shallow depth of focus, but above all the candid pose where the subject appears oblivious to the presence of the photographer. I suspect a fair amount of tone dodging might have been needed to lift the shadows around the eyes, but this has been done very skilfully to produce a great portrait." - Martin Evening

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People's Choice