Photo Challenge: A Finalist!

Keith has been participating in the Shutterboo Weekly Photo Challenge for a few years now. It's a great opportunity to improve his own photography skills and be inspired by the work of others, as well. Plus the deadline element is always a bonus incentive.

Last May, this is the picture that Keith took for the prompt "Red":

Then, a few months ago, we saw a flyer at our library about a local photo contest. Keith picked up a flyer and thought about entering the contest, but never did much about it. Contest entries were due by the end of October, and since October was a pretty busy month for us, I wanted to try and make sure Keith entered the contest before Declan's due date. (Ha! As if that date meant anything, in the end. Little did we know we still had another week of waiting around.)

I briefly considered just choosing one of Keith's photo on my own, printing and entering it, but what if I picked one that wasn't one of his favorites? Would he be disappointed? In the end, I told him I really thought he should enter, and also told him which of his Photo Challenge images I thought were the strongest.

So together, we chose the above picture of Eleanor. I got it printed and matted, and Keith dropped it off at the library. A few weeks later, we found out that Keith is one of the 10 finalists! I'm so glad that he entered the competition, and very proud of him for working to continually improve this new skill and having the confidence to enter the competition.

So just being a finalist is a "win" of sorts, especially since 5 of the 10 finalists get some sort of prize. But of course, we'd love for Keith's photo to officially be #1! Right now, an exhibit of the 10 finalists is traveling to all of the library branches, so patrons can vote on their favorite. Well, they've actually already been at the main branch and the University Heights branch.

This is the last week of voting, so if you live in the area, please stop by the Coventry library branch and vote for photo #3!