Photo Gallery: Young Photographers’ Contest

Congratulations to our winners: Lyla Vasquez, Rose Dibbs and Jamie Hughes – and to our Honorable Mentions: August Gracia, Steph Greelish, Dominick Labruzzo, Emma Pierce (twice!) and Annabel Law.

Over 100 submissions came in from young photographers from 13 middle and upper Cape schools. The Copeland Chevy and Subaru dealership in Hyannis kindly sponsored 2 of the awards and Lambert’s Fruit Market of Centerville under-wrote the 3rd. We also received financial support from Ira Toyota of Hyannis, Orleans Camera and the ROMEOS group (Retired Old Men Eating Out Sometimes) and the Mills family.

We were lucky enough to engage 3 seasoned judges. John Schiraga is an expert photographer. Rita Colantonio is a graphics artist. Both are award-winning; both affiliate with the Cape Cod Art Center in Barnstable. Our third judge was Bob Tucker, an experienced professional photographer and owner of the Focalpoint Studio in Orleans. Our contest director was Lawrence Brown, an award-winning photographer who teaches photography at the Art Center, at Cape Cod Academy and to adult students at the Academy for Lifelong Learning at the college. Brown is also a trustee for the contest’s host: the Hyannis Public Library.

Knowing the limitations of how large our virtual gallery could be (a maximum of 50 slides) the first job was to reduce the number received by half, looking for clarity, sharp focus, creativity, composition and handling of light. We got 14 sunset / surf photos, for example, so competition among those was fierce… 10 pet shots… 6 sports photos. Then the gallery of 50 went to the judges, each of whom had clear areas of expertise.

Judging of artwork, despite whatever rules of thumb judges might cite, is subjective. You might reasonably feel your work was superior to someone else’s – and you might be right. Judges saw the work with names and schools hidden to eliminate any biases. We did our best.

Thank you to EVERYONE–your artistry was astonishing!