First place

 

I’ve never been big on awards, but I admit it is nice to be recognized with an occasional pat on the back. I think clip contests and the like are somewhat of a necessary evil because, in a way, winning a category or simply placing in one lets you know that you’re still relevant (at least to judges, if not readers).

At left is a page I designed with leftover photographs I shot following the June flood. Individually, none of these images made sense to run in the paper. Collectively, however, they worked. It’s really just a collection of photos I took for myself, not worrying if they’d ever get published. It’s something I’ve gotten back in the habit of doing, and blogging can be a great incentive at times.

On the down side, this appeared on page D7 buried behind the classifieds, so I’m afraid no one ever saw it. It was only meant to be a “page filler” anyway. That’s just the way it goes, I guess.

Here is what the judges wrote about the package in the Hoosier State Press Association’s Better Newspaper Contest: Best Multiple Picture Group, Division 5, First Place – “Images that are both diverse and cohesive move this entry above the others. The lack of people in the photos, rather than detracting, actually increases the package’s impact. A well-written cutline didn’t hurt, either.” 

Here is the cutline: “Surreal. It is a word heard often in the wake of June 7. As water receded from the smallest cracks and crevices, an unusual and changed world was revealed – one that made little sense: A chair dangled in the blinds of a broken window at Columbus Regional Hosptial, and a muddy handprint in the basement told the hospital’s sad fate; sediment rendered a portrait of the Lady Olympians basketball team unrecognizable; Cummins Engine Plant was swamped. Mud-caked basketballs at East High School, soaked day planners at Cummins, and eating utensils in the middle of dirty Mapleton St. waited for no one. On Newsom Ave., a worthless couch became a useful roadblock. ‘All things must change to something new, to something strange,’ wrote American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. These sights are strange, indeed.”

I can’t believe I quoted Longfellow. That’s a first.