Update: NYI Hometown Contest Photo Exhibit

Our Hometown contest culminated with a photography exhibition in New York City. The photographs of the grand-prize winner, first-prize winners, and runners-up in each category were displayed in a grand space in Manhattan, and viewed by thousands of prominent and influential New Yorkers.

YOUR HOMETOWN WINNERS ANNOUNCED

Next Contest Set for Spring 2008

Editor's Note: There are many interesting facets that come out of the NYIP Focus: Your Hometown contest. In this first report we're announcing the winners and providing a short description of the judging. In the next installment, we'll cover some of the interesting things that we learned.

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First and foremost, here are the Grand-Prize Winner, the Four First-Prize Winners, and the Exhibition Winners of the NYIP Focus: Your Hometown Photo Contest:

Congratulations to all our winners and finalists, and thanks to everyone who participated by entering the contest or voting for contest entrants.

Breaking News

There were over seven thousand entries in the Your Hometown Photo Contest, and while there are only a few winners, we do have another exciting contest coming up that will allow you to test your photography skills. We'll be announcing the details shortly, but it will be called "NYIP Focus: All That Glitters." We're in discussions to mount the winners' exhibition in Las Vegas in spring 2008. There will be four categories in which to test your skills, including one that will welcome digitally manipulated images.

We'll be announcing the details here at nyip.com shortly, but if you would like us to
e-mail you the information as soon as it's ready, and we'll send you the details. We expect the contest to open in December, but there are a few pieces that we need to work out in the meantime.

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Contest Report

By Chuck DeLaney, NYI Dean

Our three judges sat down to pick the winners of the "NYIP Focus: Your Hometown" Photo Contest on Monday October 1. When they convened, the judges' chambers were bathed in the warm glow of a beautiful early fall afternoon in New York City. By the time the Grand Prize Winner was selected four hours later, the room was dark. Nighttime had descended on midtown Manhattan. I was present throughout the judges' deliberations with other members of the NYI staff, to provide administrative support and answer questions. In addition, the judges kindly agreed to allow us to videotape the proceedings. We'll post video highlights shortly.

I've judged hundreds of photo contests, but I've never had the opportunity to observe other judges at work without being involved. This was a hard-working panel that did its job well. I want to offer my thanks on behalf of all contest participants to all three of our distinguished judges - Bobbi Lane, David Handschuh, and John Owens.

It turned out that our three judges had never met each other before. Bobbi, a commercial photographer currently based in Westport, CT was the first to arrive. She was the only member of the panel I did not know beforehand, and we had a chance to talk and tape a short interview before John Owens arrived. I learned that Bobbi has a large client roster and that she does lots of teaching, mostly to beginning professionals looking to sharpen their skills. You can learn more at www.bobbilane.com. Prior to relocating to Westport, Bobbi launched her career in Southern California. She immediately struck me as a confident judge and, listening to her talk about photos in the contest, I'm sure she's a great teacher as well.

John Owens is an energetic guy who is passionate about photography and his job as Editor-in-Chief of Popular Photography. In a short interview, John pointed out that he and his top editors spend lots of time judging the many contests run by Pop and its popular Web site http://www.popphoto.com. It's always a pleasure to talk with John, and he takes contest judging very seriously.

When David Handschuh arrived, he gave a quick video interview before the judging began. I met David ten years ago when he was covering a story for the New York Daily News about two missing people from Lower Manhattan. Since then, we bump into each other from time to time and I was thrilled that he could find time to judge the NYIP photo contest. You can learn more about David by visiting his Web site www.nycfoodphotos.com or doing a search on the Internet. He was one of the brave photographers who headed into the heart of the destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 and he was lucky to get out alive.

After a few minutes conversation, the judges were ready to get down to work. Before the final judging, each of them received copies of the one hundred finalists in each of the four categories and noted the pictures they felt were the strongest. While there was some overlap on their respective "favorite" lists, there was a lively debate concerning the finalists in each category.

It was agreed that the judges would first pick the First Prize Winner in each category and then select the Grand Prize Winner from those four. For every category the judges selected a "first runner-up" that would become the First Prize Winner in the category that yielded the Grand Prize Winner.

"Local Music" was the first category to be judged. The judges agreed that the entries in this category were particularly strong. The finalists were slowly whittled down to the top ten entries, and from there it took the judges quite a while to pick the final five pictures and award the First Prize.

On they went, through Pets and Wildlife, Faces in the Crowd, and finally Main Street. As with every contest, there were pictures that one judge or another cited as being very strong images. Sometimes the other two were persuaded, sometimes they weren't. Occasionally an image that had been put to the side was brought back to the discussion as its different merits were discussed.

In the end, the judges agreed that the final images were all very strong photographs, each of which had many positive qualities. They ended up being very satisfied with the choices that were made. Good-byes were said, and the judges headed homeward.

The next day, it was my pleasure to begin contacting the winners and to call Lori Harrison, our Grand Prize Winner. In a later report I'll cover some biographical details of some of the other winners, but Lori's story is very interesting, and I'd like to tell you a bit about her.

One of the things I wondered was how Lori heard about our contest. Here's Lori's explanation, in her own words:

There's Lesson Number One. As they say in the lottery, "You have to be in it to win it." Years ago, we had a contest at NYI to commemorate photography's 150th birthday, and one of the big winners almost didn't make the 45-minute drive to the post office in her rural part of California to mail her photo in by the contest deadline. She told us later that she figured her chances were slim, so why bother? But then she recalled how proud she was of her photo and decided to invest the time.

The Lesson: Don't judge yourself. That's the judges' job.

Naturally, my next question was about the circumstances when Lori took the photo of her six-year-old daughter Maleah. Again, Lori explains herself beautifully:

I'm talking with Lori now about when she plans to visit New York City. She told me she's bringing Maleah with her. We're all very excited to meet her. I'll have details in the next installment of the Hometown Contest Report.