Hey, does everyone remember my latest accomplishment on the photography front?  You know, the one where I am no longer bogged down by gopher duties.  Why don’t we let that accomplish settle in for a little bit… tick tick tick.  Oh hell, let’s relish it for a few more moments.. tick tick tick.  No that is a wonderful feeling and looking forward to basking in that glow for 5 long, long SECONDS.  My lovely wife was unable to let me have  a small and infrequent moment all to myself and felt compelled to let the air out of my ego with comments on my previous umbrella post.  Truth is, I was late getting to that post and in the meantime we had submitted a number of entries in the Knox County Fair Photography Contest.  Since our last entries in the fair, she also pulled a miracle shot out of her a.. I mean leveraged all her photography “skilz” to produce a pretty impressive picture.  As a result, we were once again head to head in competition with me holding on to bragging rights based on my strong showing (yea, I’m living it up as much as I can) at the Peoria County Fair.  We eventually made our way out to the fair to see how our efforts compared to the local offerings.  Any guesses on what the results were?

Well, the good news is the photo that won an Honorary Mention at the Peoria County Fair took a first place!  Of course, I also have to openly admit that Linda’s new photo also took a first place in her category.  Now for the kicker.  Her shot not only took a first place, it took Best in Show (as in top photo from all the entries) meaning technically she slightly out did me.  In case you are making your own quality judgments, keep in mind that on the right side of her sunflower picture at about the horizon is an approaching bee perfectly stilled with a Macro lens on full aperture.  Did she compose that shot and purposely plan to have that particular effect when she took the snap?  Was it planned with great scrutiny as to required timing and composition elements?  All elements, of course, with the outstanding photograph on the right.  Rather than drag this discussion out any longer than it already has between us, I’ll just man up and simply congratulate her on this achievement.  Oh, you might also like to know how the rest of our entries did.

In somewhat of a pleasant shocker, we made quite a ribbon haul.  I took a first with the awesome Tree picture and two thirds with my Twin Eagle picture and the B/W Raven.  Linda took a first with the Sunflower and Bridge (middle) shots along with seconds for her Waterfall image, the Watered Leaves and the B/W Rapids shot in the upper right.  The pink ribbon keeps staring back at me for the overall Best in Show.  Linda has been continually jabbing me with that accomplishment, which I could probably get over if she was not doing the poking with the end of her umbrella.  So, my triumph was short lived, but I have a bunch of new shots taken last Saturday along the Illinois River.  Shots that were planned, composed, required zoom  “skilz” and ISO wrestling… not that I am pointing that out for any reason.

Now to go find where the next Photo Contest is going to be at – and take note, this is probably the first time in a looooong time I finished my monthly quota so early.