Attaboy

April 3, 2001

The money would have been nice, I suppose.

More than I suppose. It would have been nice.

I thought I might have a "chance" so I went ahead and worked at winning the cash and or other prizes.

After looking at all the entries I kind of "knew" what was going to win, and sure enough the winner deserved the win.

I got an attaboy - an Honorable Mention -

Considering that I was competing against people who do this for a living, I am happy with my attaboy.

I am also convinced, as I was before, that not only do you have to have the "eye" for the picture, but that composition and cropping and "being in the right place" are all a part of the equation for success.

For me, it was clearly a combination of the three, since the winner was cropped down to 1/3 of the original shot. I worked on focusing on the drama. I was also in the right place at the right time. Spouse and I had taken the cable car up to just below the summit of Mt. Blanc in France. In the cable car with us was a group of alpine skiers who headed out for some spring skiing.

After moving around on the platform in the sun, I spotted the first of the skiers heading down the slope. I changed to a telephoto lense, and started clicking away.

Almost 20 years later the slide was dusted off, run through the new scanner, and presto, an entry was born.

Right place, right time, right crop, and there you have it, an attaboy.

I entered about 20 pictures to the contest series, and spent between 30 to 40 hours working on them.

Some folks will do just about anything for a shot at 5k.Thats a lot of hours for a pat on the head.

Amazing though, what a little encouragement will do for you. I have this suspicion that there will be more entries in the future. I can't have that scanner collecting dust, now can I?