And the Winner of Our Isn’t It Romantic Photo Contest is

Julie Sterling Williams

Location: Charlestown, MA Rooftop Deck
shot with the Canon 5D Mark II
the frame number is:  4d7f63a169afa-Williams,Julie-PixBoomBaRomantic.jpg

What's the story in this picture by Julie Sterling Williams?
Make one up.  She has her eyes on him and is smiling warmly and freely. He has his eyes closed and is smiling...or is he? Let's see. Perhaps she told him a joke but he doesn't like puns. Or he asked her to marry him and she said "yes" on condition that he sells his Porshe. Or she said "yes" but only if her mother could live with them. Maybe they are celebrating on the roof garden of their new home. He has just made the down payment but she quit her job!
OK. It doesn't matter what the story is, you just know this picture has one. Story is one the most compelling elements that can bring a picture to life. Another is emotion. One way or another, you get a feeling of joy from this picture. Two good reasons to make it our choice for our Winner. Congratulations Julie!
Of course, the photograph no doubt has its true story. Julie didn't tell us what it is in her caption but she hinted in the title. It's called "Engaged."

Our Contest is over, but love is not!

It is great to see such a wide interpretation of the word “romantic.”

Oh yes, we received wedding pictures

and dating pictures

and kissing pictures

and lonely pictures

and just-walking-on-the-beach pictures

 

Clearly, you were having a good time!

Now we are off to our mountain retreat to see the photo oracle and bring back the message of who won the contest.

The Official Results of

Our Holiday Madness Photo Contest brought in a few pictures that were well up the Madness Scale.     

Here are some of our favorites:

Deirdre McKeown’s photo of the annual Dolphin Dip held on New Year's Day gives us the chills but didn't quite make it into the finals—perhaps because the view is too distant. It might work better with a tighter crop. Dierdre writes, "The annual Dolphin Dip was held on New Year's Day near the pier in Surf City, NC. Hundreds of revelers showed up to race into the ocean for charity. The water temperature that day was in the 40's."

Laura Kraft shows a very odd take on togetherness in "A Family Christmas." Laura's photo is a wonderful document of Christmas in the United States in the early 21st century. She writes, " I receieved a text message after finishing my last final from my sister Kelly who had just come home from college. She wrote, ‘I just made the playroom a Winter Wonderland! Hurry up and get home, so we can have family time!’ This was our family time. I found it too amusing that when we finally all got together, we were each enjoying our separate forms of technology. This was our Christmas."

Jennifer Pinkus gives us another view of "good life" in the Colorado mountain resort of Vail with the image she calls "Frosty Bottles." ( 4d3053278fa8a-047 Thirsty.jpg) This has a nice "sense of sense." You can virtually feel the cold bottle and smell the stale alcohol.

Johnbasco Mariajoseph jolted us out of our state of frosty Madness by flying us to a street festvial in Tamilnadu, India. This photograph, called Gypsy family, is wonderfully frenetic. There is a nice visual rhythm in the stream of hands—starting with the hand on the drum on the right, the cocked hands on the two dancers, and the hand coming in from the left. The face of the dancer in the middle is the center of interest but some of the folks in the background steal a bit of energy from the photograph. Johnbasco writes, "I went to Mailam early in the morning to do some candid photography during the Panguniuthiram festival. I don't carry a tripod because it will hinder my shooting because there will be a huge pushing crowd around me at all times. Then I chanced upon this gypsy family-Called 'Kuravas'- in Tamil language."


Some of the entries seemed to inspire each other.
    
Consider Donald Malumphy's
"Whose bright idea was this?"

and

Brian Taylor's

"Retired sailor"
   

There were some glorious displays of Madness

Althea Pomerleau shows us a new view of Seattle.

John Ellingwood’s sister shows great (and leaping) exhilaration in a New Hampshire snow storm. Nice execution – and backlight.

Congratulations to Susan, winner of Our Holiday Madness Photo Contest!!!

Maier's story is a real inspiration. She wasn't on assignment for a magazine or newspaper. She was not paid for her work. She seems to have made the pictures (more than 100,000 of them) because of her passion for photography.

And she is finally getting some of the recognition she deserves. If you are in Chicago, you can see an exhibition of her work at the Chicago Cultural Center through April 3.