Winner and 2nd and Third Place for Best Wedding shot of 2008 - UP to 3 years experience

<p>And the winners are.....</p><div></div>

<p>Congrats to all the winners! Great work!</p>

<p>Congrats!</p>

<p><strong><em>Good job judges! Interesting picks, better than the normal run of the mill wedding shots. Congrats to the winners & posters, many where quite good. Cheers!</em></strong></p>

<p>Congratulations, winners! This contest was my first experience with photo.net and it was a very fun and positive one. Thanks to the photo.net community and to the judges for their time and expertise! I've learned a lot! Thank you again! (FWIW, Jill Gately's image was my number one pick, too!)</p>

<p>Congratulations Winners!</p>

<p>many congratulations to the lucky winners.</p>

<p>Congrats to the winners and everyone else who entered! Cheers!</p>

<p>congratulations to the winners</p>

<p>Congratulations to the winners - very nice work and it was fun to participate.</p>

<p>The judges had a difficult time! There were a lot of amazing images. Congratulations to the winners and also to the judges for doing such a fine job judging.</p>

<p>Wow - 2 B&Ws here too (it's the same in the pro's competition too)! That's definitely surprising.</p>

Thank you everyone for your nice comments and I appreciate the win and the constructive criticism. I am really flattered. Good luck everyone with your photography careers and future weddings.

<p>Great work. Congratulations to the winners!</p>

<p>Enjoyed participating and following the whole thread(s) day by day!. My congratulations to the winners here.</p>

<p>Congratulations to the winners!<br>

Glad to see Dennis Creason making it to the top 3.</p>

 

<p>Sorry! I think a missed something on this contest. I really like Jill Gately's photograph, but the others are not so great to win a contest. Just my stupid opinion!!!!!!!!!!!11</p>

<p>Wow -- 4 of 6 in this contest are B&W. Nice to the winners' excellent efforts, but customers are not 67% ga-ga over B&W.</p>

<p>Ken - Perhaps in your area if the average customer were judging, they may have come to a different conclusion and picked color.</p>

<p>However in Stowe, VT or NY or DC where I shoot, black and white is king. I've done weddings where I had to convince couples to do at least some color. On the Wedding Info sheet, they indicate what ratio they wanted and over 50% of my couples want a larger portion of the shoot to be black and white.</p>

<p>Having said that, I didn't even notice the black and white vs color issue. It was purely on composition, emotional impact, texture, exposure and overall excellance. It is just a coincidence that they were mostly black and white. I also think there is quite a difference between photographers judging wedding work vs an average consumer. Cheers..</p>

<p>Congrats Jill, Bryce and Dennis.</p>

<p>Congrats!!!</p>

<p>Jill, you were the very deserving winner!</p>

<p>Until next year!</p>

<p>Nice going gang! Congratulations to all, even the so called non-winners. Those with the "guts" to post their work for all to critique are winners in my books. Good job all.</p>

<p>Congratulations from me, as well. Bottom line, congratulations, and the photos are all terrific. I think all three are great photos (and there were easily 10 more that were terrific, too). </p>

<p>I must admit, however, that I am a bit confused by the comments from the judges, considering the quality of work submitted. I think Jill's photo is great, and what really makes that photo for me is the personality, tenderness, and emotion you can feel in it. The joy of the bride, and the tenderness of the groom. But the arch is coming right out of her head, and that is noted in the comments. If it weren't noted, that's one thing, but it is noted. </p>

<p>Again, it's a great photo. I would be...I don't know if I'd ever get a shot like that - I'm just that good. So I'd be more than proud to have taken it. I would consider myself to have made some kind of quantum leap. But I'm just confused, that's all. Jill, I hope you take no offense to my question.</p>

<p>Allan - There is not one photo in the entire contest that was perfect. You had to be part of the process to understand. Where one photo would be loved by one judge - another judge would point out a valid flaw. This was true of all the images that were judged to be the best. Then you might have an anflawed image that had absolutely no emotional or little emotional appeal or was stiff and or contrived....<br>

It was not easy ;-) These are, after all, not studio shots or commercial shots for a magazine spread where you have art direction and all the time in the world.. These are wedding shots and as such - wedding photographers are shooting on the fly much of the time. Fast and furious and not always picture perfect but strong, emotive and memorable.</p>

<p>All - First - oops, I meant to say "I'm just NOT that good." Holy cow, big word to forget. Sorry.</p>

<p>Mary - I competely understand how difficult it was. I did not mean to say that it was easy. Just that I was confused by that one comment. I guess I should not have said anything since you are expecting a lot of comments about the choices and I am unlikely to be taken in the manner in which I intend. </p>

<p>with apologies. allan</p>