Perfect 10

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On Monday, Oct. 17, New Times’ general manager looked at the sparse number of entries for this year’s photography contest and was a little worried.

“Is this usual?” he asked.

I myself was beginning to sweat a bit. Could this be the year the photo contest “jumped the shark”? Michael, the office receptionist and a vital member of the contest team, assured me that the photo entries were going to start pouring in. Throughout the rest of the week, and especially on Friday afternoon as deadline approached, the photos did indeed stream in – 556 by closing time, setting an all-time record.

Once again the great eyes of this county swept out over hill and dale to bring back riveting accounts to share with our readers. Each year we are amazed by the beautiful imagery discovered and created by the talented community of photographers.

True to tradition we changed up the categories and divisions to keep the photographers on their toes; this year we brought back the Professional and Amateur divisions and added the category of Morro Rock.

The judging duties were performed by the gifted group of Forrest Doud (last year’s Best of Show winner), Marta Peluso (photography instructor at Cuesta College), Frank Scotti (partner and Chief Idea Officer at the Advertise Here agency), and Colleen Rosenthal (award-winning local photographer).

The tired cliché of “a picture is worth a thousand blah-blah-blahs” still holds true, so to save space and get to the good stuff, let’s look at the images!

 AMATEUR – Open

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AMATEUR – Flora

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AMATEUR – Animals

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AMATEUR – Kids

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AMATEUR – Land/Seascapes

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AMATEUR – Rock

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Professional – Rock

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Professional – Land/Seascapes

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Professional – Flora

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Professional – Animals

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Professional – Kids

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Professional – People

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Professional – Open

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New Times Photographer Christopher Gardner is a good judge of character but not a judge of the contest. He can be reached at cgardner@newtimesslo.com.

This article appears in Nov 10-17, 2005.