Mourning the Lake County Fair--Again

 

With one exception, I have competed in the Lake County Fair photography exhibit every year since 2015. That exception was 2020, when the entire Fair was shut down for COVID. Unfortunately, this year will be another exception. I had selected the photos (but fortunately not printed them yet) and sent in the entry form only to receive a letter saying that the photography exhibit is cancelled for this year because the building where it is held is structurally unsound. That wasn’t determined until inspected after a recent storm, so the fair committee didn’t have time to find a replacement location.

Although I compete in club competitions nine months of the year, I generally do better at the Lake County Fair. It’s also more fun because it requires a different kind of image selection process, with discrete categories and size restrictions. In fact, all photos must be 8X10 or 10X8, so sometimes it’s a challenge to decide what to leave in and what to crop out. Because of these differences between the club competitions and the one at the Lake County Fair, I was sorry I couldn’t participate in 2020, and I will also miss participating this year.

Since I don’t have the Lake County Fair as an outlet, I figured I would use this one to display a few of the many images I had planned to enter. They wouldn’t necessarily be the judge’s favorites, but they are mine.

The osprey at the top of this post was shot last month while it was flying over the Snake River in Washington. I would have entered it in the B&W Wildlife category.

Also from that trip is this photo of Multnomah Falls along the Columbia River in Oregon, which I would have entered in the B&W Scenic category.

One of the fun categories is called “Artistic Effect.” Most of the entries in it are photos that have been creatively doctored using postprocessing software, as I did with this one taken from a section of a pulpit in Mattias Church at Budapest, Hungary during a 2024 cruise.

This string of orchids was taken in Bangkok, Thailand in January.

The next photo shows a Portrait of a Vietnamese girl and was also taken in January. It demonstrates the dilemma created by having the 8X10 size restriction. Do I include her feet in the colorful sandals, which means I also have to include the uninteresting stuff on the left, or do I zoom in closer to her face to cut off the boring parts and lose the shoes as well? I would have tried it both ways before deciding.

This final photo would have been entered in the Human Interest category. The couple are my niece and her new husband at their farm wedding last August. (That’s my sister-in-law as the “limousine” driver.)

Entries must have been taken no more than three years before the fair, so all of these photos still qualify for next year. I would rather have entered them in 2025, though, to leave room for others I take before then.

But sometimes you just have to grin and bear it.

I'll Try Again Next Year

 

Another Lake County Fair has come and gone. I submitted 15 photos this year and won nothing. That’s not unusual. My record has always be uneven. Last year I won three white ribbons and one blue one, but the year before that I also won nothing. And that’s okay. Yes, I like winning, but its the process that’s fun.

That’s why I’ve already started selecting photos for next year. Oh, not all of them, and even the ones currently in my 2025 folder may be replaced if I shoot something better before next summer. But if it fits a category and I like it, why not save it as a possibility?

One category I’ve never entered is for photos from the Lake County Fair itself. But last week I took several photos, including the one of the 4-H color guard that heads this post. I don’t know if it is good enough to win anything, but it is certainly good enough to enter, so I saved it to next year’s folder. I’ve also saved a couple of potential portraits (both taken at my soon-to-be daughter-in-law's’ bridal shower), a butterfly who posed for me while I was out on a walk, and a sports complex taken in Sydney during our trip to Australia last year.

I’ll add others over the next nine or ten months, and then I’ll have the fun of sorting through them and choosing the ones I like best.

Because, although ribbons are nice, I enjoy the process even when I don’t win.

Evaluating Photos for Competition

 

The application form for the Lake County Fair arrived in the mail recently. Technically, it is not due until July 10, but there is a limit on the number of entries so I try to get it in as soon as the application period opens. Since the entries have to be listed on the application, that means I just completed the process of selecting the photographs I will enter this year.

I have been exhibiting photographs at the Lake County Fair since 2015 with varying results. My long tenure at the fair puts me in the advanced division, where I compete against a tough field. Photos can be submitted in 12 subject-matter categories, with one color and one black-and-white photo allowed in each. That means I have the opportunity to submit 24 photos. That sound like a lot, but there are several categories, such as sports, where I often have nothing to enter.

Most of my photos are either landscapes or buildings. So my biggest dilemma comes in the scenic and architecture categories, where I may have to select among several of my favorite photos. Then there are those categories, such as floral and wildlife, where the competition is steep and I don’t expect to win. Still, the cost of entry isn’t based on the number of photographs exhibited, so I have nothing to lose by entering something that may not be competition worthy but doesn’t embarrass me. That’s why I entered the Northern Lights photo at the top of this page in the weather category last year. I entered it because I could, but I didn’t expect it to win anything. Certainly not the blue ribbon it did receive.

Photography is art, and art is in the eye of the beholder or, in this case, the judge. As an example, I also enter photos in the monthly competition held by my camera club, and one recent entry there got a score of 23 and an award in the April competition, a 22 when it went up to the umbrella organization to compete with other clubs, and a 19.5 in the end-of-the-year competition back at the club level. Those numbers probably don’t mean much to you, but a 23 is a good score for someone with my skills and a 19.5 is barely adequate.

The point is that choosing entries based on what a judge might like or even what I think might win is a futile exercise. Every judge is different, and I can’t predict the outcome. So in the end I change the saying to “art is in the eye of the photographer.” I simply choose what I like best.

Sometimes that works, and sometimes it doesn’t.

We’ll see what happens this year.

Another Year at the Fair

 

I entered 17 photos in the Advanced Division of the Lake County Fair this year and won three 3^rd place ribbons and one 1^st. I had to laugh because the blue ribbon was for a “just because I can” photo, meaning one that fit the category and didn’t embarrass me but that I didn’t expect to win anything. The one I thought was my best and had my hopes riding on got a 3^rd place. Photography is subjective, and you can never predict what a judge will do.

The photo at the top of the page is the first-place winner from the Color/Weather category. It is from my trip to Iceland. An interesting fact is that I took it on my cell phone because I couldn’t get my more sophisticated camera to set up correctly. The best thing about this win is that I met my long-time goal to beat a particular member of my camera club.

This next photo is the one that I really, really like. It was taken at the Waterford Crystal factory in Ireland. The woman is cutting a design into a wineglass, and I love the concentration on her face. The category was B&W/Human Interest.

"Man and Mountain Goat" took third place in the Color/Portrait category. The man was obviously expecting people to photograph him and his goat because he had a cap out to accept donations. I dropped money in his cap and asked for permission anyway, which he gave.

The final photo took third place in the Color/Architecture category. Competition wise, I do better with photos showing details of buildings than I do with photos of an entire building. That’s probably true for others as well, since taking the entire building is more touristy. (I take both, though.) This photo shows some of the detail of the Melbourne (Australia) Arts Center, which was designed to look like the Eifel Tower.

I’ve been entering in the Advanced Division for several years now, with varying results. I’m up against strong competitors, and many of them take a lot more time with their photos than I do with mine (both in setting up the photo itself and in post-processing). So I’m happy with whatever I get.

With this year’s fair behind me, I can’t wait for next year.

Dealing with Ambiguity

 

As I said in my last post, I enjoy choosing photographs for the Lake County Fair. The rules say they have to have been taken in the last three years, and that limits my options. As a result, there are many categories that I simply don’t enter.

Then there are those times when I have several photos I like for a particular category. Since I can only enter one, I have to make a choice. Color and black and white are separate, so sometimes the discarded photo can be used in the other category. But not always. Just because something looks good in color doesn’t mean it works in monochrome. And after I make my choice, I often second-guess myself and wonder if the other photo would have done better.

But the worst part is the ambiguity in several of the categories. Here is the list:

Domestic/Farm Animal

Artistic Effect/Collaging

Floral

Human Interest

Nature – Scenic

Portrait

Lake County Fair

Insect

Architecture

Wildlife

Sports

Weather  

Most are self-explanatory, but three involve some ambiguity.

First, the very words “Artistic Effect” are subjective. Do they include the everyday art that we see around us, or must those objects be manipulated into something else? Fortunately, past winners indicate that what the eye sees can qualify, so I entered these snaking benches in the black and white category. It didn’t win anything, but I love the artistic effect created by the subject.

Second, I have no idea what “Human Interest” means. I didn’t enter in that category this year, but my past entries have always included people who were not looking at the camera, such as the sand artist from 2018. Looking at past winners, however, people don’t appear to be a necessary element. In fact, Human Interest appears to be more of a catch-all for those photos that either don’t fit anywhere else or would double-up in a category where the photographer already has an entry.

The final category that confuses me is the Nature – Scenic one. I can tell from past winners that it can include manmade structures, such as bridges, but how much must the nature element predominate? This year I tried it both ways, as you can see from the photos at the top of the page (neither of which earned a ribbon). The first is Boukes Luck Potholes from South Africa, and the second is Portland Head Light in Maine. Even the Portland Head Light is mostly setting, however. Would it have qualified if I had used a close-up? I don’t know.

The subject categories aren’t the only source of ambiguity. Photographers are separated into two classes: beginner and advanced. The definition of a beginner is “less than 5 years of experience and/or 5 juried showings.” A juried showing is one that the photographer has to apply, and often compete, to participate in, so that is an objective measure. But how do you define 5 years of experience? Some members of my photo club define it by adding the words “at the Lake County Fair” after “experience” and entering in the beginning group even when they have competed at the club level for many more than five years. Since I am in the advanced group, that is to my advantage since it means I don’t have to compete against them, but it doesn’t seem fair to true beginning photographers. But without more clarity in the definition, it is hard to argue with their interpretation.

I get it that the Fair’s Family Arts and Crafts Department (which runs the photography exhibit) has very little room to explain the rules and the categories, and I’m not sure how they could make it clearer without using more space. Sometimes you just have to live with ambiguity.

But it’s still frustrating.

Winning Isn't Everything

 

Another Lake County Fair has come and gone. This was the second time in seven years that I haven’t won anything, but that’s okay. I was up against stiff competition, and many of my competitors spend hours using post-processing software. I don’t have that kind of time. I usually spend 15-30 minutes to bring out the highlights and eliminate the worst flaws, but I prefer my photos to look natural.

Of course I like to win, but that’s not the primary reason I enter. I enjoy sorting through my photos looking for decent pictures that fit the categories, and although I may not think a photo will win, I’m happy to enter anything that doesn’t embarrass me. In other words, if I like it, that’s good enough.

Photography is art, not science, and judging it is subjective. It’s good to understand the traditional wisdom because there are many times when following technical “rules” improve a picture. But not always. It’s all in how the photographer sees his or her subject. Since the photographer is the only person who knows what he or she is trying to say with a particular photo, ultimately the artist is the only judge who matters.

And I’m fine with that.

Back to the Fair

 

The Lake County Fair took a hiatus last year for COVID 19, and I suffered from withdrawal. So this year I submitted twelve photos and earned two red ribbons.

Technically, I could have entered twenty-four photos—one each in each of the twelve color categories and one in each of the twelve black-and-white categories. But in some of those categories I either had nothing at all (e.g., I had no sports photographs taken within the last three years) or I didn’t like what I did have (e.g., domestic/farm animals). And that was my criteria. I didn’t have to love it, but I didn’t want it to embarrass me, either.

It was easy to decide what to enter in the color Artistic Effects category since I had only one that I really liked. The photo of the Grand Canal in Venice at the head of this post was the first of my two red ribbons.

Since I was only allowed to enter one photo in each category, other decisions were harder. That was especially true of the wildlife categories, where I had a number of choices. I’m glad I ended up with the seagull for the color one, since that was the other red ribbon and I don’t think I had anything that could have beaten the first place entry anyway. I chose the seagull because the lines from the seawall and the fence give it an interesting and unusual composition.

My second choice was this iguana. It’s a nice photo but too conventional.

I also considered entering the iguana as a black-and-white wildlife photo, but I think it loses a lot of its interest without the color.

It’s still a good picture that wouldn’t have embarrassed me, but here again I had several choices and ended up going with something a little less conventional. The photo of the geese ready to take flight didn’t win any ribbons, but I doubt the black-and-white iguana would have done any better.

My favorite photo didn’t win anything, either, but I’m still proud of it, especially since portraits are not my strength. Deciding which one to enter wasn’t hard since I had only one. Here it is just for fun.

I’ll never know if I would have done better if I had made different selections, but that’s part of being an artist. What I like and what appeals to others isn’t always the same.

And I’m fine with that.

Mournng the Lake County Fair

The Lake County Fair has been officially cancelled for this year, ending my five-year string of photography entries. Since I don’t have that outlet, I have decided to display the photos in this blog post. But first, you need to know how the exhibit works.

Under the rules, I’m required to enter in the “Advanced” category (as I’ve done for the past few years), and only one photo can be entered in each section. Color and black-and-white are different sections, however. Also, the photos must all be 8 X 10 or 10 X 8, so that is the proportion (although not the dimensions) that I used here.

The photo at the top of this blog is the Grand Canal in Venice and would have been my color entry for Artistic Effect. The next one would also have been Artistic Effect but in black-and-white. It was taken at Parintins, Brazil while waiting for the tender to take us back to our cruise ship.

The next two photos would have been my two Floral entries. I don’t know what the first flower is, but you can tell that I prefer nature natural to studio perfect. The second is some type of lily.

I don’t have good luck in Human Interest, but I would have tried this one taken on Tobago in the Caribbean.

Then there is Nature-Scenic, which always confuses me. Lake County gives no guidance on the categories other than the name, and I’m never sure if I can use scenic photos that combine nature and other elements (such as buildings or people). Even so, this photo taken from St. Thomas in the Caribbean would have been my color entry in that section.

I’m not good at portraits. I entered that section only once and didn’t get a ribbon, but I like this photo I took near Manaus, Brazil, so I would have entered it. (By the way, I have no idea what the boy is holding.)

Architecture is one of my favorite categories. This year’s entries would have been a Nashville parking garage (taken from my hotel room) and Catherine Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia.

My final entries would have been in Wildlife. The iguana was on St. Thomas in the Caribbean, and I think I saw the geese along the Erie Canal.

Some of these photos may get entered in next year’s fair, but I hope to have additional choices by then.

And since you can’t see these in August, enjoy them now.

Chasing Ribbons

I’ve been entering my photographs in the Lake County Fair since 2015. Here is a breakdown.

·       In 2015, I entered four photos in the beginners’ division. I won a red ribbon for a black and white photo in the nature/scenic category. That photo showed a waterfall flowing under a bridge. (To see the image, go to my August 7, 2017 blog post.)

·       In 2016, I entered seven photos in the beginners’ division. I won a white ribbon for a black and white photo in the architecture category. That photo showed an outdoor fire escape and can also be seen in my August 7, 2017 blog post.

·       In 2017, I entered twelve photos in the advanced division. I won a blue ribbon for a color photo in the domestic/farm animals category. That photo showed a ewe and her lamb, and you can see it in my August 14, 2017 blog post.

·       In 2018, I entered seven photos in the advanced division and received no ribbons. I was satisfied with the quality of my entries, however.

Now to 2019. I entered eleven photos in the advanced division and won three ribbons. The picture at the top of this post shows my second-place color entry in the insect category. The next two show my third-place entries in the black and white floral and the black and white architecture categories.

 

Although I’m proud of my accomplishment, I’m not stopping here.

Next year continues my quest for that elusive blue ribbon.

Conventionality or Creativity?

This year I moved up to the advanced photography category at the Lake County Fair and faced much tougher competition than in the past. So I wouldn’t have been surprised to walk away without any ribbons and was gratified to win second place in the Domestic Animals Color class.  But I was surprised at which photo won. That’s because it was my most conventional, and therefore least favorite, entry.

I take photos because I enjoy it, not to win competitions or even for the sake of art. But I do think that creativity should play a role in photography competitions. My biggest disappointment with the judging at the Lake County Fair was that—with some exceptions such as the insect category—the judging seemed to emphasize conventionality over creativity.

The floral category is a good example. The winners were all beautiful pictures, but they were also similar—conventional rather than creative. I don’t have any of those photos, but this one I took years ago is typical of the conventional style.

My entries were more unusual. I’m not saying they should have won. There were other equally distinct entries that were probably worthier of a ribbon than mine. Still, it would have been nice to see creativity win out over conventionality. And just so you can see what I mean by creativity, I have included my entries (color and black & white) below.

Art is in the eye of the beholder, so I can’t really fault the judges.

But I wish they had given more weight to creativity.

Art is in the Eye of the Artist

We’ve all heart the saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. That’s also true of art. But I also believe that beauty and art are in the eye of the artist. I look at an alligator and think it’s ugly, but its Creator sees something beautiful.

Not everyone has the same taste, and that’s okay. If you are writing or taking photographs for public consumption, then you should keep your specific audience in mind and try to please it. But the person you have to please the most is yourself.

For the last three years, I’ve entered photographs at the Lake County Fair. The first two years I competed in the beginners’ section. In 2015 I entered four photos, and “Water Under the Bridge” (the photo above), won second place for Scenic Nature B&W. In 2016 I entered seven photos and won third place in the Architecture B&W category for “Boarding School Escape” (the photo below).

This year I entered twelve photos in the advanced section. More about that next week.

As I wander around and look at the other entries, I often wonder, “Why did that one win when I like that one better?” But that’s the wrong question. Part of it is the science—there are breakable “rules” designed to add interest to photographs and draw your eyes to the main focal point. But most of it should be the art, and art—like beauty—is in the eye of the beholder.

It’s interesting that my 2015 and 2016 winners were both black and white, but maybe it’s just that there were fewer entries in those categories. Still, it does take some skill (or art) to know what looks good in black and white and what doesn’t.

Maybe the more important point is that I consider myself best at landscape and architectural photography, and those are the categories for my winning entries from the past two years.

But as long as I’m happy with my art, winning or losing is secondary.