Kevin Sisemore

Alistair Tutton

For the first time in Urban Photo Safari history, 2008 ended with a tie! Congratulations to both Kevin Sisemore and Alistair Tutton. Both images are stunning and worthy of the Urban prize. Speaking of which, do they have to split the massive bounty of $25 at Amazon.com? After much thought, I’ve decided to award two gift certificates in the full amount. I mean, they did break history after all.

As I’ve said before, there were alot of great images this year. Some clear winners and some just plain interesting. The main point as always is to have fun and learn a little more about taking photos. I hope you’ve had as much fun as I did and hope you’ll return next year.

I’ll post the full contest vote tally sometime tomorrow. The image names will change as well from “Contestant 01″ to the real contestant names. Until then, post some comments about your Urban experience. I’ve already heard one or two interesting stories. I’d love to hear more. Remember, next year’s newbies will be reading this. We want to get them inspired to get out and have as much fun as you did.

The voting round is complete. I’ll tally the votes and post them later this evening. Check back after 8 p.m. tonight. Until then…

Yikes. Okay, took me waaaay longer than I thought. There’s a story why but, I’ll explain later. For now, head over to http://urbanphotosafari.com/2008 to see all contestant images. All 61 of them! I’ve been at this for a while so, I’m taking the night off. To get you started here is what you need to do between now and Tuesday morning.

Take a look at the images and pick your ten favorites. Yes, a little nuts I realize with 61 contestants. We are rethinking how we’ll approach this for next year. In the past it’s been around 30 people. When it ballooned I was a little dumbfounded as to how we were going to do this. But, it’s been in place this way since it’s inception so, we’ll tinker with it next year.

So, again, pick your 10 favorites. Write ‘em down and send them to me in an email to deanolufson (at) yahoo (dot) com. The contestant names are hidden until voting is over. Write down the cotestant # and the image # (contestant 22 - image 03 etc.). Have them to me by Tuesday morning before noon. I tacked on an extra day for you to look through them considering it took me an extra day to put ‘em up.

If you don’t have your votes in, you’ll forfeit any votes you get and cannot win. So, grab a pad of paper, a cold beverage of your choice and browse through some great images. Everyone shot some pretty stunning stuff. Any questions? Shoot me an email.

Until tomorrow…

This always takes longer than I think it will. That and a couple contestants needed to rearrange a couple things. Either way, I thought I’d give you a preview. Help pass the time the Friday afternoon before Memorial Day weekend. Check the page at: http://urbanphotosafari.com/2008 and you can see the images as I build it. I’ve been adding images throughout the day. I’ll post again when it’s complete and give full details on voting instructions.

A lot of great stuff to look at. More later….

It’s coming. Apologize for the delay. I should have them up in the next couple of hours. The second the images are up I’ll post here.

Contestant images will be up around noon today (Friday 5/23). Keep an eye on the site later in the afternoon for voting instructions and a link to view the images.

I apparentely hid the email address in the last post. Get me your list of ten images + 1 self portrait by tonight at 8 p.m. The email address is deanolufson (at) yahoo (dot) com.

Remember, the self portrait doesn’t have to be a picture of you. It can be an image of anything that you feel represents you. Mug shot? Great. No mug shot? Pick an image of the tree if that “represents” you. Oooooo, how esoteric.

Good luck! Any questions, let me know.

Here’s the time line for the upcoming week.

• You have until Tuesday evening (8 p.m.) to send me an email with your 10 picks + 1 self portrait. No need to actually send the images, just let me know the file names and put your name in the email. Some email addresses aren’t self explanatory.
• I will then take some time to gather up the images and place them online. I’ll have the images up by Friday morning. I make a post on this website to announce that voting can begin.
• You have until Sunday (noon) to get me your votes. Send them in an email to me with the image names. You only get 10 votes and you cannot vote on your own. 1 vote per photo. I’ll announce the winner on this site Sunday night.

Just to be clear about voting, only contestants can vote. It’s a whole, hey, you actually showed up, you can vote, if not, you can’t, kinda thing. My copywriter friends are gonna kill me for the punctuation on that one. That is, if they haven’t already.

I just got done doing the count on donation etc. A couple of things I’d like to mention that helped out a lot. For the third year in a row, our friends at Horizon Shutters helped us cover some incidentals. What does Shutters and Urban have to do with each other? Brian is a good friend and he’s also a Urban Photo Safari nut. I’d suggest visiting the site next time you need shutters. They make really cool stuff.

Also, for the second year in a row, Creative Outfitters has given us a good deal on the t-shirts. After the cost of the shirts, all donations went into the pot. The snacks were provided by Urban veteran Terry Shipman and Aaron Gurley helped out with the downloads. Both of which helped a ton.

I also can’t thank Ryan Hembree and the crew at Indicia Design for helping us out again this year. The building, signs, maps and a lot of other items were done by them. Neil even stayed after and helped clean up. Gotta admit it was a great place to meet wasn’t it? Thanks to all of those people and to those over the years who’ve helped keep this thing going. Most of all, thanks for showing up. Wouldn’t be a Photo Safari without all of you.

Last but, not least, the total we were able to donate to Reaching Out Incorporated was a whoping $410.11. This is the combination of t-shirt sales and direct donations during sign in. I was hoping for $100, maybe $200. But, over $400! Dang. way to go people. Thanks for chipping in. I’ll be giving Marcia the money within the week. They’ll use the money to make food and get clothes to directly benefit the homeless in our city.

I realize it may be rather silly to mention everyone who helped out but, when you put it together with the donations, you start to realize it’s a community thing. A lot of people involved to bring you Urban Photo Safari but, we ended up helping out a lot more people than just ourselves.

More tomorrow. If you have any questions, send me an email at deanolufson (at) yahoo (dot) com.

Just got back after cleaning up at Indicia. Okay, no I didn’t. I took a nap. Lot’s of walking on a great day will do that to you. I’ll have a post up late tonight with next steps etc. For now, go through your photos and identify which are your ten best (+ the self portrait) and email those file names to deanolufson (at) yahoo (dot) com. You have a couple days to pick so, take your time.

Pretty impressed with the turnout! We had close to 70 people this year, ran out of t-shirts and collected a huge donation for Reaching Out Incorporated. It was great seeing old friends and meeting some new ones. I’m glad you could come out and have some fun. I’ll post full details on all the stats throughout the week. Stay tuned.

To the right is a photo of the Indicia Design building. Wanted to let everyone know there will be free parking near the back of the building. Take a look at the map pdf in the post below to get an idea of where the parking lot is in relation to Indicia.

Looks like the weather is shaping up to be rather nice (great, I just jinxed it). but Gary promises me it will be 82 and sunny. He hasn’t let me down yet. Also, take a look at the checklist tonight to make sure you have everything to head out and meet up at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow. I know, a little bit of a stretch for the college crowd but, it’s only once a year so it’ll be worth it.

I was going to write a post a couple days ago asking what kind of cameras everyone was going to be using. But, I may as well let you know now that we’ll be using Flickr to post the contestant images this year. Quite a few benefits in doing so.

• We’ll be able to view the meta data so we can see what kind of camera was used.
• You won’t need a Flickr account to view the images but, if you sign up for a free account, you can order pictures, posters, you name it. If it can have an image on it, you can order it.
• WAY easier for us to manage. In the past it was a lot of Photoshop actions and manual uploading to create the galleries. Seen a cool Flash and/or html gallery? I’ve probably tried it out and made a few of my own. I can’t think of a better way to manage and archive our images.
• You can email and share the images alot easier. You can even grab the images and post to your own blog directly from Flickr.

This is pretty last minute but, in case you still don’t have a camera, they sell some pretty cheap disposal digital cameras (oxymoron?) at places like Walgreen’s. If the only limitations are 1) has to be digital and 2) has to be at least 640×480, the kinds of cameras are pretty limitless. Most phone cameras are now way above that limit. If you were thinking of entering as a group (one camera, several people), break it up and enter individually. Grab a cheap one-time camera and you are good to go. Believe it or not, the the images you get off these things can be pretty amazing. Friend of mine brought a credit card sized camera a couple years ago and the images turned out really cool. Over saturated, kinda blurry but, really interesting. May even want to leave the bad-ass DSLR you have at home and experiment a little with a cheap camera.

Okay, that’s it. I’m heading over to Indicia to set things up. If you’d like to follow my actions tomorrow, subscribe to my twitter feed (link to the right). I also have several friends using twitter going to the event so, could be an interesting twitter mash-up. Twitter + Flickr + Safari. Hmmm, someone market that.

See you tomorrow!