Bring Home the Blues!
Holy moly. For being complete newbies to the fair, we actually did quite well!
I brought home three blue ribbons, two white and one red, plus I forgot to pick up a yellow (?) for a fourth place photo enlargement. Oh well.
I think I'm most proud of my little snowflake quilt though... it turned out so pretty!
I can't say I had a whole lot of competition for the blue though... mine was the only submission in the long-arm category. In fact, there was only a handful of quilts submitted at all! And most of them were by a 78 year old woman. :)
My crocheted bag also took home the "lone submission blue". I'm less proud of this one because I kind of already felt it was mediocre, and I just got a blue for showing up.
The same held true for Neil's home brew competition... there were only four submissions total, and all of them were his! He came home with Grand Champion, Reserve Champion, three blues and a third place. Now, I know that sounds a little silly, but the judge actually came to Neil's brewing demonstration at the local home brew store last weekend and told him he deserved every single award he won, and that his beers were fantastic (except that third place one I guess. ha ha!). I've heard that this guy is notoriously hard to please when it comes to beer, so that's saying something. Apparently my hubs has quite a talent for brewing!
As for my photo submissions- the "snapshots" were clearly a throw-away for me, considering my poor interpretation skills. But almost all of my enlargements were awarded something! It was really, REALLY hard to find them in the sea of randomly-hung poster boards full of photos of varying quality. I wish they had organized them by category- it would have been much easier to compare my photos to the other winners.
My favorite photo of my grandpa at his 90th birthday party was a clear winner in the "people" category. It reminds me of the grumpy old guy in the movie "Up", minus the grumpy part. :)
My landscape submission was one of my artsy pictures I took up at the cabin. I had my husband paddle out into the lake in a kayak at sunset and toss lit balloons tied to forks into the water. I'm sure he loved me yelling at him and making sure each balloon was in the right place.
My self portrait photo was also at the lake, only a year later. I sewed myself a mermaid tail out of fabric I had left over from making a bunch of "Beauty School Dropout" hairstylist smocks for a local high school production of Hairspray the Musical. The silver fabric caught the sunlight so beautifully... and it really has depth and sparkle in black and white.
My third place sunset photo (also taken at the lake... go figure!) is so pretty. I can't believe it only got third! I quickly glanced around for other entries, and honestly, none of the others were this mystical and incredible. But maybe I'm biased. :) #nofilter
My last print to "ribbon" was my photo of the wild donkeys on Bonaire. I LOVE this picture too... I think the balance of the five donkeys is awesome, and I love how they're looking at the camera. I'm not sure who judged the photo contest, but I'm sure my photography professor from college would have loved this one too. Perhaps the fair judges appreciate more "local" views in these photo contests. I bet if these donkeys in a desert were cows in front of a barn instead, it would have taken Grand Champion! Ha ha!
Overall, we learned a lot about how to do the whole fair thing. I think if we try this next year, we're going to seek out a county with more competition for beer and quilts. That way we'll feel like we actually earned our blues.
I brought home three blue ribbons, two white and one red, plus I forgot to pick up a yellow (?) for a fourth place photo enlargement. Oh well.
I think I'm most proud of my little snowflake quilt though... it turned out so pretty!
I can't say I had a whole lot of competition for the blue though... mine was the only submission in the long-arm category. In fact, there was only a handful of quilts submitted at all! And most of them were by a 78 year old woman. :)
My crocheted bag also took home the "lone submission blue". I'm less proud of this one because I kind of already felt it was mediocre, and I just got a blue for showing up.
The same held true for Neil's home brew competition... there were only four submissions total, and all of them were his! He came home with Grand Champion, Reserve Champion, three blues and a third place. Now, I know that sounds a little silly, but the judge actually came to Neil's brewing demonstration at the local home brew store last weekend and told him he deserved every single award he won, and that his beers were fantastic (except that third place one I guess. ha ha!). I've heard that this guy is notoriously hard to please when it comes to beer, so that's saying something. Apparently my hubs has quite a talent for brewing!
As for my photo submissions- the "snapshots" were clearly a throw-away for me, considering my poor interpretation skills. But almost all of my enlargements were awarded something! It was really, REALLY hard to find them in the sea of randomly-hung poster boards full of photos of varying quality. I wish they had organized them by category- it would have been much easier to compare my photos to the other winners.
My favorite photo of my grandpa at his 90th birthday party was a clear winner in the "people" category. It reminds me of the grumpy old guy in the movie "Up", minus the grumpy part. :)
My landscape submission was one of my artsy pictures I took up at the cabin. I had my husband paddle out into the lake in a kayak at sunset and toss lit balloons tied to forks into the water. I'm sure he loved me yelling at him and making sure each balloon was in the right place.
My self portrait photo was also at the lake, only a year later. I sewed myself a mermaid tail out of fabric I had left over from making a bunch of "Beauty School Dropout" hairstylist smocks for a local high school production of Hairspray the Musical. The silver fabric caught the sunlight so beautifully... and it really has depth and sparkle in black and white.
My third place sunset photo (also taken at the lake... go figure!) is so pretty. I can't believe it only got third! I quickly glanced around for other entries, and honestly, none of the others were this mystical and incredible. But maybe I'm biased. :) #nofilter
My last print to "ribbon" was my photo of the wild donkeys on Bonaire. I LOVE this picture too... I think the balance of the five donkeys is awesome, and I love how they're looking at the camera. I'm not sure who judged the photo contest, but I'm sure my photography professor from college would have loved this one too. Perhaps the fair judges appreciate more "local" views in these photo contests. I bet if these donkeys in a desert were cows in front of a barn instead, it would have taken Grand Champion! Ha ha!
Overall, we learned a lot about how to do the whole fair thing. I think if we try this next year, we're going to seek out a county with more competition for beer and quilts. That way we'll feel like we actually earned our blues.
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