Place Name: First Place Contestant Name: The Crozet Gazette Entry Title: Fourth of July Parade Slideshow Entry Credit: Malcolm Andrews, Allie Pesch Judge Comment: As a photo judge, I see a lot of parade shots. These are outstanding. Composition is very strong. I appreciated the honing in on subjects and not having lots of clutter in the background. (That is no easy feat with parades and events.) There was obviously a lot of work to get different angles. I especially loved the children looking out for the next parade unit and holding their candy bags. Outstanding work!
Place Name: Second Place Contestant Name: The Breeze Entry Title: Election Day in at JMU and in Harrisonburg Entry Credit: Landon Shackelford Judge Comment: This was a very close second. I loved how the photos conveyed the activities of a history-making election day. Lots of great faces and different angles showed the many activities beyond casting a vote. Fine work!
Place Name: Third Place Contestant Name: The Breeze Entry Title: 9/11 Memorials on JMU's campus Entry Credit: Landon Shackelford Judge Comment: I liked these a lot - strong composition and careful attention to subjects. A lot of photos are similar, which is understandable with this type of event. but I'd have a tried for a bit more variety.
Competition Comment: This was overall a strong category and the choices for second, third and fourth places were very close.
The winning entry stood out for a great variety of photos, very strong composition, careful framing of shots and the ability to tell a story. I like to look at a gallery entry as a whole but i also like the ability to pull out a single shot and say, what is the story here? The Crozet Gazette entry really met that for me. In fact, it checked all of the boxes.
But all of these were string entries and I very much enjoyed seeing the. Your communities are well served!
