'April showers' contest winners

Congrats, Pat! Great shot.

Wow. I am totally stunned!

When I posted the shot to by blog as my photo of the day this past Feb, I was unconvinced it was worth a damn. In fact the day's post was titled "Brilliance or Bollocks" (pardon my French, errr... English).

I think I ran into a good match for the photo in terms of the judge of the contest. I thank Isa and anybody else who voted for the image.

I will use the prize money to help finish paying off my camera (I had been shooting with it for just over a month when I took the winning shot).

Wow, I usually agree with the judges, but I have to say, I could not agree less. Water droplets on plants? Now, that's original. There were several entries better than all of these top three (like the honorable mentions).

Time for NEW judges. They have jumped the shark.

Hey, Fonzie ... lately, we have had a new judge every month. Look, all judging is subjective. It's good experience for amateurs to be exposed to the opinions and tastes of a variety of professionals. That's what happens when you enter juried competitions. We'll continue to use different professional judges every month. I don't expect everyone to agree with their final choices, but you can rest assured that all of them bring a trained eye and a wealth of knowledge and experience to bear on the judging process.

I think the RAW contest process works very well and participants are fortunate to have such a great variety of judges. The variety of comments each month prove the subjective nature of art. Congratulations to the top 10!

Sounds like people's feelings get hurt when their photos are not picked. :(
I thought the Judge did a nice job. Congrats to all who entered and to the top picks.

I always have a problem when people comment on my photographs as "just like a painting." They typically do not come from photographers, and are meant to be compliments. But as a photographer, my reaction is, "If I want to create a painting, I would become a painter." Photography already takes a back seat in the art world, and I certainly don't want my work to be "elevated" into painting like.

While I can usually respect, even if I do not agree with, a judge's decision, in this case I'm dumfounded. For the life of me I have no idea what the winning photo is a picture of, and while I can certainly appreciate photos taking on an impressionistic character either intentionally or accidentally, I think in the case of a photo contest the average viewer should at least be able to correlate in some way the picture with the contest topic. So now I ask, what is it a picture of???

The photo is taken as I sat in the passenger seat of our car. The camera is directed through the rainy windshield to the road ahead. The focus intentionally being just past the windshield, you get the colored orbs that are taillights of the cars ahead (and their reflection on the wet road), the streaks left over from the wipers.

I don't mind that many people don't know exactly what the photo is of at first. I enjoy seeing the different reactions and ideas and feeling that the photo evokes. Positive or negative, I am just glad that it produces some sort of reaction.

I do have to disagree with your assertion that the photo doesn't correlate in some way with the contest topic. You may not have been able to tell me that it was shot through a rainy windshield, but I reckon many if not most could piece together how the photo fit in with the rainy theme.

It is quite a departure from my usual photos. I have been trying to challenge myself to depart from my norms and if that produces work that is challenging for the viewer all the better.

Pat, you have a great attitude.

Some photographers (and painters, movie directors, etc.) would go out of their way describing the intents and meanings of their work, and expect viewers to interpret them the same way. Others would stay mum, and let the viewers make up their own minds.

I tend to fall into the second category. Partly because my ego says that my photos should be strong enough to speak for themselves. And partly because I know that viewers' reactions will be subjective, and respect their right to their opinions. But unlike many who choose this approach, I do pay attention to the viewers' comments. Sometimes, I can apply the feedback towards my future work.

One does not need to really fully "understand" a piece of work to appreciate it. We probably all love some movies with ambiguous endings, and some songs with undecipherable lyrics. The same holds true for photographs.

I am very pleased with the thought and don’t feel like adding anything to it. It's a perfect answer.