The Toy Camera Contest Winners: Some Preliminary Jabber
After an egregiously long wait, we are happy to announce that the Toy Camera Contest judging is complete! Through no fault of our patient and very talented judges, we -- Beerzie Boy and Apatrick -- took quite a while too long to move the 635 entries (!) through the judging process. To everyone -- contestants, judges, sponsors, casual observers -- our sincere apologies and thanks for your patience.
Now that the grovelling is out of the way, we owe many people thanks: our judges, our sponsors, and most of all, those who participated in this contest. Without contestants, a contest is an elaborate dud, and you all helped avoid that problem. Thank you. A couple of other notes:
(1) Our friends at Lightleaks Magazine will be publishing the winners in their October 2006 issue. We will be posting more information on this as it happens.
(2) Our esteemed Photo Editor, Apatrick, has assembled a gallery of 100 or so contest entries. This should give you an idea of incredible challenge that our judges faced.
And now, with no further gab, the
The Toy Camera Contest Winners!
First Prize:
Goes to Markus Puustinen, for his image Last Snowfall.
Markus used a Holga 120GFN camera and Kodak BW 400CN film to shoot this image in the center of his hometown Helsinki last
spring.
Markus is a 30 year old Finlander who got interested in photography few years ago but has been actively shooting only for the last year. At the moment photography is his number one passion and he shoots every day. By day, he works as ICT-consultant, but it his dream to quit that job and be a full time artist.
For his accomplishment, Markus wins an Original Lensbabies Flexible Lens Mounting System and a Lensbaby Macro Kit. Our thanks to the folks at Lensbaby for providing this fine prize.
Second Prize:
Goes to Warren Harold, for his image Four Trees.
Warren used an Arrow Diana Clone and T-Max 100 film on an extremely foggy day off the waters of Clear Lake in Webster, Texas.
Warren graduated with a BS in Photography from Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas in December 1993. He worked for six years with Craig Stewart, a commercial photographer in Houston. He left Craig's studio in the fall of 2000 to take a position as a Quality Control Specialist in the Photo Operations Group at NASA's Johnson Space Center. His creative drive is fed by all types of photography with a preference for the dreamy quality of an array of cheap plastic cameras.
For his achievement, Warren wins a 40-pack of Jewelboxing Kings. Jewelboxing is a Professional-Grade DVD and CD Packaging system. Our thanks to the folks at Jewelboxing for providing this excellent and useful prize.
Third Prize:
Goes to Chricel E. Portela, for her untitled image.
Chricel used an Fujipet to shoot her picture in Texas.
Chricel was originally born and raised in New York, where she worked for The Patent Trader as their photographer. Prior to this, she studied photography at Westchester Community College, but is mostly self taught. She really enjoys printing and experimenting in a traditional darkroom. She uses a variety of 35mm and medium format traditional cameras, and recently discovered toy cameras and fell in love. They re-awakened her creativity, and for that will always be grateful. She uses several Holgas, a Diana Deluxe, a Fujipet, a Lubitel, and a Holga with Diana lens.
For her accomplishment, Chricel wins a copy of Slide Show Pro, a Flash plug-in for producing dynamic, customizable slide shows, which is used for all of FILE's Projects. Our thanks to Todd at Slide Show Pro for providing (and coding) this awesome tool.