Winning photos are on display at New Frontiers Market on Mission (Highway 246) and Alamo Pintado, Solvang

                   .  .  .  and the winners are:

Life category,

  1st place - Christine Beebe, "Immature Katydid on California Poppy Petal"
  2nd place - Robbie Crowder, "Damselfly"
  3rd place - Jonathan Shillingford, "Flowers in Bloom"
  Honorable mention - Mabel Shatavsky, "Elements" 

Land category

  ist place - Jonathan Shillingford, "Georgie with a huge burden to bear"
  2nd place - Nick di Croce, "Solvang Sunset"
  3rd place - Mabel Shatavsky, "Santa Ynez"
  Honorable mention - Robert Etling, "Lost Valley Trail"
 

Rules:
The Main Rule is that all photos will feature the natural world within Santa Barbara County!  We are looking for striking images of nature, highlighting the diversity of natural life in and around the Santa Ynez Valley.  Your images may show animal behavior, portraits of wildlife in their natural habitat, plant life, natural landscapes, weather, or people interacting with nature.

Categories:

• Life: photos of birds, mammals, insects, wildflowers, mushrooms and all other forms of life found wild in Santa Barbara County.  Garden flowers and domestic animals like cats, dogs, cows, or horses are not appropriate.

• Land: photos of the land, geology, weather, sunrises and sunsets, including people in the landscape.

• Youth: a special category for nature photos taken by kids through age 17.

When:

Photos may be submitted from January 15, 2010 until April 15, 2010.  Contest winners will be announced at the Santa Ynez Valley Natural History Society ten-year anniversary celebration at the Sedgwick Reserve on April 24, 2010. 

Prizes:

First, second, and third place awards will be chosen in each category. Winning and honorable mention photos will be published in a contest gallery on the Santa Ynez Valley Natural History Society web site at synature.com and displayed at a suitable venue in town.   

First place winners in each category will receive $100 and a certificate and a one-year membership to the society. Second and third place winners will receive a certificate and a one-year membership to the society.  Honorable mentions will receive a certificate.   

Photo Contest Rules:

This competition is open to all amateur photographers, except for officers and members of the board of directors of the Santa Ynez Valley Natural History Society and their families.  To be considered an amateur, participants must make less than half of their annual income from photography.   

Eligible photos should be no more than 3 years old.

You may submit multiple images. 

Entries may be digital images or color or black and white slides or negatives.  We ask that all photos be submitted as "8x10" prints (or 8-1/2 x 11 inch photo paper).  Sorry, digital images cannot be accepted in purely digital form.  (Costco offers very reasonable professional photo printing for digital images.)  Prints cannot be returned, so don't send your only copy of a special print!

Photo prints should be mailed to the Santa Ynez Valley Natural History Society at:

     SYVNHS Photo Contest
     PO Box 794
     Los Olivos, Ca  93441

 Each submitted photo must include a complete photo caption, which includes the name, address, and phone number of the photographer, the contest category of the photo, the subject of the image, the location and date where the image was taken, and the camera equipment used.   This information should be written neatly on the back or fastened securely to the print. 

For a photo in which a person is recognizable, you must secure a model release from the subject or, in the case of a minor, the subject's parent or guardian permission, and provide it to the Santa Ynez Valley Natural History Society upon request.  A suitable model release is available at http://photocontest.smithsonianmag.com/ModelRelease.doc. 

You must be the sole author and owner of the copyright of all photos entered.  

All photographs should accurately reflect the subject and the scene as it originally appeared.  Photos that have been digitally altered beyond standard optimization will not be considered.  Acceptable photo alterations are adjustments to color, contrast, brightness and sharpness; removal of dust and scratches; cropping; black and white conversions; and the use of HDR (high dynamic range) techniques, where multiple exposures of the same scene are combined for a greater tonal range or depth of focus. Not acceptable are photo composites (combination of two or more photos, not of the same scene); the addition, duplication, deletion, or moving of objects in the photos; or the use of artistic digital filters and effects which do not show the scene in its natural way. 

Domestic animals (cats, dogs, cows, horses, etc.) and garden flowers are not appropriate subjects for the photo contest.  Generally speaking, this would also mean no photos of domestic livestock, though they are fine in the landscape category. 

The board members and officers of the Santa Ynez Valley Natural History Society will choose the winning photos, or they may appoint qualified members of the public to make the choice.  Images will be judged on originality, technical excellence, composition, overall impact, and artistic and scientific merit.  The judges' decision on all matters relating to the competition is final. 

Individual photographers retain all copyrights to their work.  The Santa Ynez Valley Natural History Society reserves the non-exclusive right to use all submitted photographs in their publications and for promotional purposes. 

Questions and inquiries regarding contest rules or technical matters should be addressed to synature@west.net.