More promotion for me

I thought I blogged about this earlier in the year, but maybe I didn't. I can't find the post, if I actually wrote one.

Anyway, our local newspaper had the idea to do a photo contest leading into a published book. The project's website can be found here. I submitted many photos and hoped for the best.

The book arrived at my house today. Sadly, none of my photos are in the book itself, but the book includes a DVD with over a thousand more photos. All contributors were guaranteed to have one photo on the DVD.

After zipping through the photos on the DVD, I counted eight of mine on it. Eight! 8! Ocho! There may be a few more that I missed, but I did count at least eight. They also listed my Flickr page in the back of the book. That won't mean much in 40 years' time, but right now it might mean a lot.

As for the book itself, there is no doubt that it contains many beautiful, spectacular photos. I do have some serious criticisms that will hopefully be taken care of for the next edition of the book, should there be one.

The book was divided into chapters, and some of the chapters are very, very short with only a few pages of photos. Had they included more photos in each section, there might have been a better chance for people to have photos included. The landscape/nature chapter is by far the largest, for some reason.

Secondly, the photos were voted on by the general public. I think that gave the professional photographers a distinct advantage. I'd like to think that an amateur like me would have an equal shot, but I just don't see that happening with the professional quality of some of the shots. Of course people are going to favor the photos shot with top-notch equipment and years of experience! I also think the Register-Guard's own photographers should not have been allowed to enter. If their photographers want photos in a book, let them make a R-G photo book.

The end result of the voting was that many names showed up multiple times in the book, along with many of the newspaper's own photos. Sure, some of the amateurs had their photos included too, but I think the book mainly represents the area's pro photographers.

I'm not too bummed, though. I think of the book as only one part of the project. When you add in the DVD, you end up with a very large number of photographs and people represented. The book is limited, but the DVD is far less so. The book represents the top-voted photos, and the DVD represents the spectrum of experience and quality of all the entrants.

In any case, it's something I can add to my photography résumé.