UPDATED 8/18/12 – see jump for further details based on biased comments
Well, it’s time to let the cat out of the bag, quell the suspense and end the betting. That’s right, the results of the 2012 U.B. Competition are now compiled and ready for the reveal. Sadly, I must admit that once again Linda and I were shut out of the ribbons in the local Heart of Illinois Fair Photography Contest. The good news for me is that my Honorable Mention earned previously at this prestigious competition still reigns as the big pond champ and therefore is the overriding decider for any close results between us in little pond events. And let’s just say that previous win did come into play in what turned out to be a close race. As is customary, we picked up what remained of our confidence from the HOI fair and headed on up to the Knox County Fair. Historically, we have done quite well at this smaller venue and we were optimistic with this year’s batch. Well, I was until Linda revealed she actually stayed behind on picture drop off day to help “arrange” the pictures for them. As she was telling me this she had a sly smile and evil glint in her eye. This was clearly tampering putting the whole competition under formal protest.
After work we headed up to see how the judging went. Note, a ruling on the protest had not been made yet but it would not matter if I came out ahead. Turns out, it was really close this year! Here are my entries.
Not bad eh? Not one, not two, but three first places, only one 2nd place and what turned out to be a tipping point – one third. One of my pictures (and only one for me) did get blanked. I am not sure what the deal is, but these photography judges have no love for B&W Raven pictures. It isn’t pictured above, but I personally think it is a great shot with a nice gray range. The moth was in the Insects category, the two birds were obviously in the Birds category and the squirrel and bear shots were in the Wildlife category. The latter took us awhile to figure out since there was another category called Animals which we eventually decided (correctly) was for pets and domesticated animals. This is probably a good time to point out that I let Linda basically pick the shots I entered into the HOI Fair. It occurred to me (after the fact) that there was waaaaay to much at stake to let my opponent choose my entries – we all know how devious she is! Learning from my mistake, I went back picked my own entries and re-worked some of the post processing. The Stilt, Moth, Squirrel and Bear were all new entries for this fair. The Ravens in love shot was a carryover (but Linda was doing her best to get me to replace it with an inferior shot). All turned out to be good decisions. Another important point I’ll make is Linda decided to encroach in my domain and enter the Wildlife category with her Tiger pictures. Let’s just say my little squirrel ate it for lunch.
Like I mentioned earlier it was a close competition but the deciding factor came on pick up day. While we were gathering up our pictures one of the expert photography critics was hanging out in the building (obviously waiting to see who we were) heard our name and unprompted turned and said “I really liked that shot of the moth!” I politely thanked the expert and gave a great big smile towards Linda. Thank you for the kind comments but more importantly thank you for handing Linda the umbrella for another year.
She is definitely stepping up her game and keeping me on my toes. I might have to pull out the big guns next year to stay on top. By the way, we were a little worried when we went to pick up our pictures. Another individual noticed us stacking up our pictures and recognized which ones we were picking up – he proceeded to tell everyone we were the Doerflers – our eyes started darting around anticipating a pitchfork carrying crowd to come and run us out their county. It turned out all good, they even thanked us for participating in the categories that actually grew this year. We loaded up the car, went over and picked up our winnings and called it another successful contest season — well, one of us was feeling more successful than the other hehehehe.
