We were completely overwhelmed by all of your entries in our “The Loved One” Valentine’s Day photographic challenge! We are lucky to have such an engaged community. We have narrowed down the selection to the below entries. When picking the finalists, we looked at the creativity, originality, and given proposal for the blog post. All of your entries inspired s quite heavily. Congratulations to all of the finalists! Stay tuned when we announce the final winners shortly.

Donato Chirulli. I would like to make a blog post about “The Not Loved Ones..” i.e. a reportage inside an Italian prison where the “forgotten” people live and explore their relation toward the loved people they left at home.

Maggie Mae. The (Strange) Loved One: Love can come in all different shapes, sizes, colors, and patterns. There is the expected love such as a child to their parent and the unexpected “strange” love, like a man and his pet dog and rat. My proposal is to shoot the Strange Loved Ones, the ones that people have to stop and think “how could anyone love such a thing?” From rodents and reptiles to freaks and geeks, everyone is loved. I hope to enlighten people with the images of true love, rather than just societies prince charming and princess ridding off into the woods.

Leslie Leung. This man was once a loved man, possibly a loved father, husband, friend even. I found this man relaxing in the sun at a park next to an empty seat and a garbage can. These men, but no women, were an obvious sign of the recent economic decline in Japan after the bursting of the ‘bubble economy’. Most were professionals that have been made redundant resulting in the abandonment of their families due to shame. As a sign of the suburban life they had led, many can be found reading novels or newspapers.

J Gerard Seguia. The topic I’m interested in photographing is the relationship between homeless people and their pets. Specifically street dwellers that keep pets as they live on the street. I’ve seen a lot of homeless people who are very loving towards their pet. I feel this is an example of unconditional love. Giving care, time, and love for someone, or something, when you yourself have nothing and without expecting anything in return.

Izu Pru. “The loved one” for me it’s mean two people one soul (…)

Hanna Nanna. The loved one: ‘Solitude – Dear my emotions.’
I love being with my precious people, but I need to be in love with my solitude sometimes. To me, solitude is the joy of the time to closely and fully look back myself and feel thankful of the valuable times and people around me. Empty my mind first and fill up my mind again with priceless emotions.

Juan Pablo Fonrodona. Hello, I’m a professional photographer and sometimes I do wedding photojournalism, this photo was taken with my Leica D-Lux 5. A wedding is one of the most important moments for a couple in his life, for some people and some photographers, wedding photography has a tarnished reputation they fell it like failure, like something cheap, but trust me is very important and is a big responsibility, I love to do it, and is really fun to do, you meet people, you have fun, and you are part of something truly meaning for a couple and their loved ones. I use my DSLR but I always carry with me my D-Lux 5 in weddings, that camera is my “Loved one” it really is. If I have the chance and the honor to be part of the Leica Blog I would love to shoot an entire wedding with a Leica D Lux 6, when I use my D-Lux 5 the people look at me a little strange, of course they are accustomed to see photographers whit big DSLR cameras, but thats ok, I don’t mind, is not an easy and common task to use a compact camera on a wedding, but I always do it. Spontaneous, happy, fun and funny moments on a wedding, in the most important moment of the loved ones, all whit a Leica D-Lux 6.

André Takeda. Love is your perfect muse. And vice versa.
I live in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She lives in São Paulo, Brasil. My proposal is to shoot our trips to be together, all the planes, airports, taxis. And, of course, the time we spend side by side, no matter if it’s 48 hours or a whole month in our vacations.

Hai Ho. I just recently met a friend who is a ballerina and this thought came to mind as a personal photo project. I live in Fremont which is about half an hour south of Oakland California. Every other day or so I’d hear in the news about some shooting deaths in Oakland of intentional or innocent by standers some of whom are children. Such news have gone on for years and I feel a sense of hopelessness that the city and the state have given up on the city.
I want to propose to my Ballerina friend to pose for me at the most dilapidated areas of Oakland during the day over several Sundays. Not only for the juxtaposition purposes (A Black Ballerina in the Hoods?), I want these images to be the source of inspirations and hope to the children who might encounter our photo shoot or seeing their neighborhood beautifully captured in photos. With a some more time investment can even make the photo shoot more meaningful by having her posed at the exact locations where there were innocent children got shot to celebrate their short lives and instill the thought that: ‘these innocent children could have lived and be a ballerina like the one in photo. If possible, I plan to meet the loves ones of these innocent victims and have a conversation with them. When photo-shoot is completed I am planning to exhibit at various Bay Area Venues/Galleries.

Tatiana Pezzin. Love is intense. Love is pure, authentic and genuine. As the black and white. Black and White Lovers. And if you see this picture you will know exactly what I’m talking about.

Jarod Lew. When the sun goes down and Detroit is left in the dark, it has been said by many people that you will be robbed, shot and then killed. False! I’ve been going to Detroit in complete darkness only to find that there is more love than ever before. The saying goes, Detroit Hustles Harder. We have pride for our city, and love for everyone who is apart of it. My proposal is to document the night life of my young fellow detroiters showing all the love that our city has. Hopefully this can enlighten the world that even though Detroit has its dark days, we know how to love.

Danilo Nuestro. People love their mobile phones. They bring it everywhere, every time and became their constant companion. My proposal for the blog post is to photograph people using, playing or even dressing up their “loved” mobile phones.

Edo Johanes Sihombing. The loved one through the test of time. I’m trying to capture the elderly lovers, means people who are still in love although they had been together for ages. I want to capture the endless love emotion they had for each other’s.

Christy Aumer. To me, love is something you feel. You can express it through actions, words, material — but I feel its only truth worth is when it is felt. That to me is something somewhat unknowing, and mysterious. Most of the images I would like to produce and write about, are these unknowing experiences I share with, my loved one(s).
It may be the crinkled sheets after a day of holding each other, or maybe his pile of socks that sit in the corner of our couch, or maybe the light morning fog that lays across the field near our home that covers the fragile blades of grass like he protects me.

Brendan Murphy. As a Glaswegian the idea of “the loved one” is interesting. Rather than describe a typical picture of love – family, friends, partners, I’d look at Glaswegian’s love affair with food. From schools, home through to street food, the idea could be wonderfully explored. My picture shows some Glaswegian students enjoying pancakes yesterday.

Michal Iwanowski. Fewer and fewer couples I know tend to stick together long enough to celebrate a 35 year anniversary. Or any anniversary long enough to mention. This is a photo of my parents. I’d like to make collages of those mature couples who do stick it out and still manage to have a hoot or enjoy some moments together.

Sammy Deveille. ‎”Love is not going both ways some times, even for this little model” I think that even objects can be full of feelings. Nature, abstract and objects can speak out loud.
– Leica Internet Team