Eva Zheng, Mirror Lake (SINGLE SHOT 2026)

I took this picture at the Shanghai Botanical Gardens when I was travelling last year. While I wasn’t intending to capture any spectacular shot when I took it, everyone I showed my photos to agreed that it stood out among the rest. The day I took this photo was a bright, winter’s day, just after Christmas and before New Years. Surprisingly, the park had been fairly empty despite the holiday period, and the trees still had their vividly coloured leaves. There was no wind, and so the lake was wonderfully still, reflecting the scenery around it like a mirror. Having grown up in New Zealand, where nature was aplenty, the cityscape of Shanghai always felt foreign to me, but it was times like this when I felt like the two places weren’t too different after all.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.