Orange County Fair 2007 Photography Contest Results, Part 2

Here's the second and last batch of photos from this year's Orange County Fair photography contest. All told, I got 19 ribbons out of 24 total entries. Note that the photos on this and the last post show selections from what I entered, but not every entry (or even every winner). Oh, and I have plans to show at the Virginia State Fair this year too, which will be a first for me. More info on that soon enough. Now let's get to the photos...


Architecture: Colour
An antique store building in North Carolina (I think...). Took first place.


Plant Study: Black and white
Infrared shot of river grass, took 3rd place. Compettion is always very heavy in the plant-study categories.


Pets: Black and White
Bijou! She's just yawning, but it kind of looks like she's singing. 3rd place.


Plant Study: Colour
No ribbon for this shot, although I really liked it. There were a lot of wonderful entries in both plant categories.


Special Effect: Colour
Trick shot of lights inside a giant molecule. Another first-place showing.


What Is It: Black and White
Smoothed rocks eroded by the passing river over the centuries. I like this shot because it has no point of size reference, and it's up to the viewer to decide whether they're looking at very small rocks or something enormous. In reality, the area shown in the photo was about 10 feet across. First place in category.

Orange County Fair 2007 Photography Contest results

By now, most of you are probably in suspense over just how well I did at the Orange County Fair this year. Guess what? It rocked. Out of 24 entries total, 19 had some sort of win, with a total of ten first place, seven second place, and two third place. The remaining five, obviously, were not winners within their category. My overall win ratio was 80%, a slight improvement on last year's 75%.

Worth noting was that last year was all 8 x 10 prints, while this year some were 5 x 7 due to a technical difficulty with the proto printing machine giving some photos a pinkish cast.

I know, I know, you want photos! Here you go:


Landscape: Colour
The bizarre colouration on this aerial shot made the Grand Canyon look like the surface of Mars... but it only limped to a second place finish.



Landscape: Black & White
Similar results for this aerial black-and-white of the Rocky Mounatains.


Pets: Colour
I are serious cat. I are a first-place winner.


Sunrise / Sunset
Electricity must have been in the air when this shot from my California trip earlier this year was judged: it ended up with a socking first-place win despite extremely heavy competion in this popular category.


Special Effect: Black and White
My hardcore fans might recognise this infrared long-exposure railroad shot from my Festival of the Photograph entries earlier this summer. It's no wonder this shot gets around: it's one of the best things I've done all year. It certainly was on track to take first place in the special effect category.


Still life: Black and white
I consider this simple shot of seashells by the seashore one of the best I've ever done, unfortunately I was only able to get a 5x7 print of it. But that didn't stop it from a first-place take.


Livestock: Black and white
Second place goes to these monochrome bovines hoofing it across a stark rural landscape. Note: this wasn't actually an infrared shot, although it does somewhat look like it.


Orange County Fair
The fair has a special category for images taken at the fair itself (last year's, obviously, unless you happen to be a time traveller) and this image of colourful handwoven baskets from one of the vendor's stalls took a solid first place. The same vendor was there this year, and he seemed very pleased that I'd won with a shot of his wares. He said he's be there next year too, and I offered him a free print of this shot.


Life in Orange County
Hungry for more train photography? This high-contrast infrared shot of a freight train going through Gordonsville made it to a respectable second-place finish in the popular Life in Orange County category.

Well, that's nine of them. Come back soon for more!


--Andrew Lenahan

Orange County Fair 2007 Photography contest

The Orange County Fair starts today, and I'm certainly ready. Last year I entered twelve photographs and ended up winning nine categories, which is not bad at all.

This year, though, I'm going all-in, with 24 different shots in competition, ranging from portraits to pets, livestock to special effects. Later tonight I'll find out how I did... until then, cross your collective fingers!

-Andrew Lenahan