Lens-Artists Challenge #409 – Best Ever Images

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I feel very honoured to be guest hosting this weeks Lens-Artist Challenge. I hope I’m up to the task and you’ll enjoy this weeks challenge. So, I’ll dive straight in with my rationale for this weeks theme.

World Photography Week runs from 12th – 26th August, with World Photography day falling on 19th August. I thought this would be a fantastic opportunity for everyone to share with the Lens-Artists contributors their ‘BEST EVER IMAGES’ ! Pictures that celebrate our love of photography.

Maybe it’s an image that you planned and worked hard to achieve and you’ve captured the perfect composition. It can be an image that’s special to you, or others, that captures a special moment or, perhaps an image that you are really proud of or won an award with.

All I’d ask is for you to submit up to five images with a sentence or two about them and the stories behind them. I enjoy reading the narrative behind any image.

I’ll start my gallery with an image you would have seen before but it is a special image for me. I’ve tried to use a few different images further down the page that illustrate why I’m so passionate about my photography and what it gives back to me.

I have posted this previously but I would have to list it as one of my best shots. I took this at the Upfest Festival, Bristol, a couple of years ago. It was one of those opportune but at the same time ‘make your own luck’ moments. I’d been drawn to the artist because of his cool hat. I knew from watching these guys that at some point he would stand back to check his artwork and the hat would look great against that background.

I plotted up behind him and waited for the moment pictured above. It just worked out perfectly and I entered the shot into the British Photography Awards that year. I was shortlisted in the competition ‘Events’ section. I didn’t win but we enjoyed an evening out at The Dorchester Hotel, London, for the awards ceremony.

Photo competitions are very subjective though. I also entered this image into the Shutter Hub annual photo awards that year, but it didn’t make their top 150. They stopped listing after 150 and it certainly wasn’t considered as one of their best pictures!
The lady in this picture is ‘Hoot for Peace’ campaigner Lois Atherden, who was around 90 yrs old when I took this image in 2008. She was a regular solo campaigner on Bristol City Centre, UK. She always stood in the same spot, on St Augustine’s Parade, during the early evening rush hour.

She campaigned for many years and was well known to local people and commuters making their way home after work. It was always noisy around here with drivers giving her a toot on their car horns. The image is a little bit of Bristol history.

I happened to be on the city centre this particular evening so I asked Lois if I could take a picture of her. She wouldn’t engage in conversation with me but just nodded yes, so I grabbed my pic and walked on. I took this image with one of my first digital SLR’s, a Canon 50D, but modern noise reducing software has helped improve the post processing. Lois was probably one of the first people I ever asked if I could photograph. It would be a special image to me for that reason alone, because she said yes and gave me the confidence to approach others after that.
This Lambretta mod scooter belongs to a friend. He has five of them, all custom painted and stored in a large garage. I asked him if I could shoot the scooters so he gave me the keys to the garage one afternoon and left me to it. I was a novice with studio lighting (I still am), especially with anything like this, but I had read that the professionals normally use a light directly over the vehicle being photographed.

I had a cheap, second hand, weighted boon arm so I used that, holding a big soft box above the scooter, for this shot. I didn’t use any other strobes although I’m aware that small kicker lights are normally used to illuminate some shadow areas with this sort of shot. This was me pushing my photography skills, and learning as I did so, but it worked out well. Strangely, it works better in B&W than it does in colour.
This was taken on Weston-s-Mare beach, on a summers day, some years ago. I’d gone there with my camera as there was a concert on the beach and I thought it might be a great place for a few photo opportunities. This couple were sat outside the event listening to the music. As I stumbled across them a sudden rain squall blew in, on a strong wind, and absolutely soaked me and them.

It’s just an image that makes me smile every time I see it, even all these years after I shot it. I had to leave just after this to go and change my soaking wet jeans. The rain got worse as I walked off to get dry but as I looked back I could see the couple, still in their sinking chairs, determined to sit out the rain.
I’ve included this Puffin picture because it represents something really important to me in relation to my photography. It takes me to places I would never normally visit and, in some instances, never even heard of.

This image was taken on Skomer Island just off the South West coast of Wales. There’s nothing on the island other than seabirds and we went there specifically to photograph the Puffins. They allow two hundred people a day on Skomer, which is served by a small passenger boat, on a first come, first serve basis. We went in early July, when the Puffins were nesting, and arrived very early in the morning to guarantee our place on the boat. Once we landed we headed straight off to the main Puffin area and had the most fantastic day before getting the boat back to the mainland in the late afternoon.

We would never have made the effort to visit Skomer Island if it had not had been for my photography passion. It was a fantastic experience I’ll never forget.

That’s my five images and a little bit about them. If you want to take part in the official World Photography Week event I’ve copied this from the official web site:

World Photography Week is the annual, international celebration of photography that takes place from August 12th, to August 26th.

To have your photo appear on this page, simply tag your photo #WorldPhotographyWeek on Instagram, and check back shortly. Photos are updated every 30 minutes. Scroll down to learn more and join us!

So now it’s over to you guys. Share with us your best images making sure to link them to my post and to use the Lens-Artists Tag to help us find you. I’m looking forward to seeing your choices. Last week Egidio challenged us to focus on ‘Over the Top’. As usual your responses were terrific! Finally, we hope you’ll join us next week at noon EST when Ritva once again leads us.

All images: ©Stephen Hyde 2007-2026 – All rights reserved.

14 thoughts on “Lens-Artists Challenge #409 – Best Ever Images”

  1. Steve, thank you so much for hosting this week and for your wonderful challenge. I enjoyed all of your images and reading the stories behind them. They are all amazing but The Puffin is my favorite.

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    • Thank you Beth. I wanted to catch a Puffin with its beak full of sand eels but they’re to quick. Plus seagulls attacked them as they came in to land, trying to mug them of their eels

      Reply ↓

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  3. Thank you for hosting this weeks Lens-Artists Challenge, Steve, with one of the hardest themes (at least for me). Love your photos, especially the great British Summer one 😀 I was planning on going to see the puffins this year, the Isle of Lunga near Mull is very good for them too, they are too cute! And yes, it would be for the photo opportunities more than anything else.

    Here is mine:

    Lens-Artists Challenge – Best Ever

    Reply ↓

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