Photography Contest

The local newspaper is sponsoring a photography contest for amateurs. I wanted to enter last year, but found out about it too late to get my stuff together properly. This year, the paper ran a feature about it in January, so that has given me ample time to learn about what is required.

First off, the pictures must be at least 8x10 and no larger than 11x14. I thought - hey, no problem, I have nice pictures uploaded at Kodak Gallery, so I just decided to get a couple of 8x10 enlargements. Easy, right? HA! Being inexperienced at the aspect ratio thing, I didn't realize that quite a bit of cropping occurs when you go from "true digital" to 8x10. Good thing I ordered my prints early - I didn't like the composition of the cropped pics when I received them. Plus, they didn't seem to "pop".

OK, I learned about the 8x10 cropping and did it in PSE4 to ensure I got the correct composition. This also eliminated one of the pics I was going to use, so I had to search for a new picture. Done. I have four pictures picked out:

Taken at Navy Pier in Chicago, July 2005


A picture of my nephew, Matthew, taken in March of 2005.



Taken at Green Lakes Park in Upstate NY. Yes, that is the real color of the water.


This was cropped from the following original photo:

This picture was taken from my parents' backyard in Massachusetts, in March 2005 (after a blizzard!).

I also decided to use mpix.com, based on the rave reviews from folks at twoPeas and on ScrapShare. I received my order today and WOW, they are great. Now I have to pick three of the photographs, and I am pretty sure that I will go with the first three and leave the snow capped pine tree at home.

Next - I need to figure out how to mount the photos on "foam core backing". I found the foam board, but need to cut it to 11x14. That will be this weekend's project.