Over the past month I’ve been running a contest on my Facebook Page encouraging you to send in what you think are some of your own best shots. The prize? A huge, signed, 17″ by 22″ archival quality print (the first) of my Snow Warrior image.

The time has come to pick a winner from the close to 100 entries that I received. Almost as soon as I started receiving entries, however, I thought to myself “what have I gotten myself into” because as soon as I saw the quality of some of the shots, and the wide range of people that entered – including some of my own friends, clients, students, and other acquaintances – I thought “pressure”, and that it would be an impossible task to pick a winner. Even harder, too, would be the process of picking 10 or so images (I want to feature some of my favourites aside from the “grand prize” winner) without offending people. Because seriously, out of the 100 entries, there were a huge percentage that were really good photos. Narrowing down to a “short list” was extremely tough.

Bottom line, however, I had to forget about who submitted the images, and just look at the images themselves. What images appealed to me….no matter who they came from? What appeals to me may not appeal to everyone. And a photo that was submitted that didn’t make this short list may actually be a contest winner some day.  It’s the subjectiveness of photography that appeals to me: what appeals to me doesn’t have to appeal to you. We all find our own inspiration in different photographs, and we all have different tastes.

What you see in the following images are all images that I would be happy to have in my own portfolio. That’s ultimately what it came down do. Each of these shots appealed to me, and kudos to the many talented people who submitted (serious or beginners or otherwise) behind these shots. And kudos to every one who entered, and not just the “winners”. If you don’t see your own shot here I hope you still don’t hesitate to enter a future contest that I hold – or think that it was a bad shot. There were many amazing shots I had to “drop”.

Without further rambling…I would like to present the winner, followed by three “runner ups” (sorry no prize, other than my admiration), followed by 5 or 10 shots that I just really liked.

The Winner (Signed Print) – Jacqi Hicks

This shot is what I strive to accomplish in many of my photos, often not nearly as successfully as Jacqi has done here.  This shot of a cliff diver in Mazatlan has it all:  an amazing composition, great silhouette (which I am a huge fan of), it captures a decisive moment, and it conveys a story.  I love every thing about this shot and think it deserves not only to win my contest, but grace a magazine cover some day.

The Runners-Up

These images came very close to winning, and I stared at these top 5 for a long time trying to figure out which appealed to me the most.

The “Oh, Wow, Almost”

These shots are all great shots – and as mentioned, I would be happy to have any in my own portfolio.

Tags: contest, Facebook, print, prize, winner

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 4th, 2010 at 4:08 pm and is filed under Creative Projects. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.