Paine Cuernos and reflection: When a landscape photograph has the capacity to transport you into the shoes of the photographer, then it has done a good job. All too often, views of the physical variety are uninspired. Admittedly, much of the grandeur of this image is down to the place itself, the tail-end of the Andes in southern Chile. Majestic mountains, mirror-calm lakes and rugged islands are a wonderful set of ingredients from which to create a striking view. But it could so easily have failed. The wrong light, the wrong lens, the wrong format and, most importantly, the wrong viewpoint could all have conspired to make a breathtaking wilderness relatively unimpressive in a photograph. Here, the right everything has created a haunting vista which is almost as much an uplifting experience for us as it must have been for the man behind the lens. Photographer: Howie Garber (USA). Winner at the BBC Photo Contest 1998
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