Yes, That's a Tractor Parade

Warning, even though today's post is about the fair and the parade, it is also about relieving my build-up of snark. If you judge the photography show at the fair, are a Shriner, wear a creepy puppet mask, or ride a firetruck in the parade, you might want to leave now. I am not very nice to you. :p

So the fair is over. Actually it's been over for a week, it just took me that long to recover emotionally from the stinging blows dealt by the cruel, merciless judges. Not really. I could care less what those half-wits have to say. Half the time they don't even know how to spell. If their opinion was worth anything they'd be judging an art show in New York instead of a county fair in the middle of nowhere in a land of cornfields.

I did not do well at the fair, but I'm not really that upset about it. The people that matter think my pictures are great. I did win 3rd place on my picture of the two Barn Swallows, but they didn't bother to give me a ribbon, so I spent the entire fair thinking I didn't win anything.

If you'd like a reminder of which pictures I entered, you can click HERE.

The judges did not have much to say in the way of nice comments. If I could sum up their thoughts about all of the pictures it would be, "Center everything and only use black mat-board." They thought that the beanie baby picture should have been zoomed out to show they whole body of the "Dead" dinosaur, and they thought that I should have zoomed in and completely cropped the sky out of the firework picture. The only criticism I agreed with was the one they gave to the picture of the girl and the giraffe, which was that it was slightly blurry. I knew that, and I didn't expect to win anything with that one, I just liked it, and I didn't have any other good pictures to enter in the "People" category.

Now onto the "Crazy" criticism. The seahorse. I entered it under miscellaneous. They told me that I put it in the wrong category. Miscellaneous could be anything, so why they were upset by the sea horse is beyond me. I suppose I could have understood if they felt it should have been in the animals and birds category, even though I think it is incredibly stupid that the category is animals AND birds. (Not Fish) They need to have separate categories for animals, birds, fish, etc. And don't get me started on how stupid it is that they put the insects in the same category as plants and flowers.

ANYway... They did not say that the seahorse should have been categorized as an animal photograph, they said it should have been with the PLANTS! *Face-palm**Face-palm**Face-palm* Plus, they said that it needed to be a close-up of the seahorse. First of all, if I had wanted it to be a close-up, it would have been a close-up. It was a picture of a dwarf seahorse, and I wanted it to look small, besides, in the print I made, it was THREE TIMES the size it was in real life.

Anyway, I think I should move on before I develop high blood pressure. :p

I did not spend much time at the fair, there is never anything new, it's basically the same fair every single year. The most time I spent at the fair wasn't even AT the fair, it was watching the parade in town.

Yes, this about sums up your average parade in Iowa. :p

Cue the horror movie music. Mr. Creepy, purple, dead-eyes shows up every year. What in the name of burnt meatloaf and rice pudding this thing has to do with the hospital is beyond me. It's just an embarrassment is what it is.

Awe, look at the adorable little cult! It's like the 7 dwarves traded in their diamond mine for a secret society, clown cars, and fezzes.



And the most annoying part of the entire parade. The screaming emergency vehicles full of people who want nothing more than to blow the ear-drums out of your head, and the firetrucks, which are full of rotten little children (And adults with the mentality of children) who are armed with squirt guns and hoses and mercilessly soak the crowds who just wanted to watch a parade in peace.

And now we come to the good part. The snarkiness is over. :)

I love horses. :)

And Cowgirls on horses. :)

The parade is probably the best part of the fair, so if I see anything of the fair I usually try to at least make it to the parade. Though, they could make it 100 times better if they replaced the firetrucks, police cars, and anything else that's annoying with a few more horses. Actually, just make the parade all horses. I'd be ok with that. :)

County Fair 2012

Today was the entry day for the fair. I had been debating whether or not I even wanted to enter anything this year. It cost big bucks to get something framed, and for the pitiful monetary prizes that they award, it isn't worth spending $50 to get a painting framed, even if you won 1st prize. ($2) I lucked out last year and I found some old frames that fit my paintings and drawings, but this year it would have been a lot more challenging, since my paintings are on canvas and canvas board. So I elected to just skip the art department.

I almost didn't enter anything at all, but I decided this morning to enter some photography. Nothing like waiting till the last minute, eh? :p I didn't have as many as I did last year, but I did have 5 good ones that I found. Except for the last one, these are all pictures that I already shared on my photo blog in the past, so they may look familiar. The only difference is these are all BEFORE any manipulation.

One of the rules for entry is no photo manipulation. Not even color correction. In my opinion it's a stupid rule. You might as well ban any camera lenses that alter the color before you take the picture. You might as well ban the use of different colored lights! It's about the art, people... Come on. Are you going to start saying that we can't use certain brands of pens for drawing because they make the pictures too colorful? As you can tell I really hate this insane rule.

Anyway, enough of my rantings... :p Here are my five pictures.

In the "People" category:

In the "Animals/Birds" category:

In the "Things/Still Life" Category:

In the "Miscellaneous" category:

In the "Life in Iowa" category:

The Firework was from my first ever PROPER fireworks photoshoot last week on July 4th. I used the Bulb feature on my camera, along with a tripod, so the pictures actually turned out well. I plan to do a post featuring my best ones pretty soon.

So, that's it for my fair entries this year. Hopefully I'll get something. I'm not really expecting much, but I'm hoping that at least the picture of the Barn Swallows is worth a Blue. We'll see. :)

Judges Comments

So I just discovered this half finished post in my drafts folder. I ended up completely forgetting to finish this this post, which I started months ago. It’s now the end of the year and I think it’s high time I finish it!

I started this post mainly to share what the judges had to say about each of my entries for the fair a few months ago. When contestants enter artwork and photographs in the fair the judges write down what they think of the pieces on index cards and staple them to the ribbons. Aside from sharing what they had to say, the other point of the post was to show how terrible some of the judges spelling was. Most of it was ok, but some was just downright awful. (They let these people pick the winners?!) I am leaving all the comments as they were written.

Let’s start by getting the worst comment out of the way. And by worst, I am referring to how it was written, not what was written. This was actually one of the most complementary comments I received, but it was enough to give an English teacher night terrors for the rest of their life.

First Place

“wew I made this kinda thing when I was in high school 40 years agoin

well balanced Design

love how colurs Blend”

It was very hard for me to transcribe that without editing… (Even now, as I proofread this post, I am having to restrain my fingers from correcting those horrible, horrible errors…)

The next one is my drawing.

No Award

“All very grey. Should be placed in “modern art” for its good abstraction. More texture on “berries”. Could repeat more shapes.”

The next two are my paintings.

No Award

“Very flat – Need more darks/lights for contrast… shadows would help! Cool that creature comes out of fire! – also dolphins coming out. – Maybe have a way to have the viewers eye to follow around – could use color/shape/pattern.”

Third Place

“Monochromatic – good to be all one color! Could use more definition of waves”

The last ten are my photographs.

The handwriting on all the photographs was almost unreadable. The writer used cursive, but wrote so fast that most of the letters looked exactly the same, and it took me a long time to figure out what they were trying to write, and then once I figured that out, I had to try to figure out if they had spelled the word right. For the most part I think they were a pretty good speller, they just wrote WAY too fast. There were a few words that I was completely stumped by, so for those I marked them with an asterisk. * If you see one it means I could not figure out the word because the handwriting was just way too bad.

Third Place

“Very Creative”

No Award

“Excellent capture of colors and action Ideally however should watch eyeess* in back ground (peoples backs) Focus is good.”

No Award

“Good color choice for mat. Interest center good, but would be better if pic was vertical and worms eye view of pole not so much over Wey* altui* spole* that distracts from pic.”

Third Place

“Good Color and composition bee careful to not center horizon line.”

No Award

“Good color butterfly is just not quite as focused as it could bee.”

No Award

“Interesting composition just not quite as clear as should be.”

Third Place

“Unique structural design Excellent clarity”

Second Place

“Unique subject, very clear – unfortunately the pink mat distracts from your subject”

I mounted this on a pink mat to complement the picture. A friend who helped me mat this (Who does this professionally) recommended it. This was a very picky judge…

Third Place

“Striking color, very clear focus, just wish you had more of the bird especially the body. – feather detail is very clear”

The entire point of this photo was the tail feathers. NOT the bird. Obviously the judge couldn’t figure that out…

First Place

“Excellant action and colors very clear”

So, there you have them. A few months late, but better late than never, right? :)

The moral of the story is, take what you will from the judge’s criticism, but in the end they really have no idea what they are talking about when it comes to your personal artistic interpretation. If I want to take a picture of a bird’s tail, I’m not going to include the whole bird, no matter how much better the judge thinks it will make the picture.

Oh, and the other moral is, LEARN TO SPELL!!!

8 out of 14

First to get the bad news out of the way. 6 of my entries got nothing, including one that I was really surprised about. I was sure that the boy with the peacock would win something, but it didn’t!

Also my Giraffe painting, and my drawing from the abstracted collage. On reflection, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised about them. After all, I was up against many other really great artists, and I’ve never painted before.

The other photos that did not win were the bitten gingerbread man, (I’m not really surprised. I probably grossed out the judges. :p)

The telephone pole. They claimed it would be better if I had shot it at a worms eye view and held the camera vertically. Well, that wasn’t the point of the picture at all. The subject was the interesting metal numbers on the pole, not the pole itself, and shooting it at a worm’s eye view would not have gotten the landscape background.

And the butterfly, ladybug, and flower. They criticized it for the butterfly being slightly out of focus. I suppose their criticism is understandable, but I was using a macro lens, and when you’re that close to a subject, you can’t have everything in focus. The lens just doesn’t work that way.

Now for the good stuff. :)

I won 5 third place ribbons.

First for my painting of waves.

Considering I had never painted anything before I painted this, I think third place is pretty good. :)

For my photos, my picture of the inside of the Desert Dome got a third,

As did the flamingo tail. The judges note card criticized it for not including more of the bird. Um, that wasn’t the point of the picture at all. I was specifically focusing on the tail feathers. I have plenty of pictures of flamingos. Anyone can just snap a picture of a flamingo. That’s not what I was going for.

My sunset tree also got third, and they criticized it for having the horizon in the center. Wow. That is an antiquated rule that really needs to be done away with. To begin with this is not a landscape picture, and if I hadn’t centered the horizon, it would have cut off part of the tree, or some of the flaming shadow. I have versions like that, I took many pictures that evening. None of them looked as good as this one in my opinion. I am going to post the others on my photo blog now. Look for that later tonight.

My Leaf picture also got third.

I got one second place ribbon, my two birds. Their main criticism was my choice of mat color. I picked the pink on purpose because it brought out the pink in the parrot. But apparently the judge has something against the color pink.

Now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for: The blue ribbon winners!

First up I was SHOCKED that of all the things I entered, my carved printing press plate got a blue! I wasn’t expecting anything really. Maybe third at best, but it got blue!

And finally, one of my favorite pictures, the bull riding one, also won first place.

When I get my entries back next week, I will share what the judges had to say about all of them. I only remembered the comments that I absolutely disagreed on, so I’ll be able to share the others when I have the notes in front of me. They had good things to say about even the ones they didn’t award anything to, so it’s not like they’re a bunch of mean art haters. They just didn’t understand some of what I entered.

Entrance Day at the Fair

Today I entered my Photos at the fair, I also entered some of my artwork. Altogether I entered 14 items. 10 of those were the photographs that I recently posted about, But I also entered two paintings, a drawing, and the carved mat from my second printing press project. In case you’d like a reminder, or just want to see them again, here are the things I entered.

This one I’ve been planning on entering ever since I painted it. It’s one of my favorite things I’ve done. I put it in the “Other” category, under Mixed Media, because it just has so much in it that Landscape, Seascape, and Animal, don’t quite describe it well enough.

This drawing I hadn’t decided to enter until last week, I decided that even though I didn’t really like doing it when it was assigned to me, it did turn out really well. Plus I put a lot of work into it, so hopefully the judges will be able to tell that. I also put it into the “Other” category, under Pen, Pencil, and Charcoal, because it’s part landscape, part portrait, and part modern art, but just one of those categories isn’t enough to define it.

This was my printing press plate from THIS project. I entered it in the Hobby Craft Department under “Other Art” because I really didn’t know where else to enter it. It’s doubtful that they’ll have a separate category for “Carved Rubber Printing Press Plates” any time soon.

And last, but not least, the very first painting I ever did. I entered this in the Acrylics category under “Seascapes”.

I really hope I win something. I entered 14 items, so I think the odds of me bringing home at least one ribbon are pretty good. :) Tomorrow is the judging. Mom is talking about going in in the morning to watch. Not sure if we will yet or not, but by tomorrow night I’ll know how my entries did. I’ll keep you posted!

County Fair Photos

The fair is almost here, and I am almost ready. The Hy-Vee where I work has a Kodak kiosk for making prints, so I took my jump drive there today to get my photos printed off. It was only $3.00 for all 10 which I thought was a pretty good deal. Until I got home and reread the rules.

“The size of each print is limited to the size of the mat board (11x14), but may not be smaller than 60 square inches.”

4 x 6 is not really gonna cut it with the judges I think. So I went back to get bigger prints. I’m sure that anyone familiar with those machines will probably know what happened next. I was not familiar with them, and next year I’m going to look at online printing options. $40.00!? For 10 pictures?! I was a bit shocked. I was thinking it wouldn’t be more that $15 - $20. Oh well, live and learn. I don’t regret it though because they look so good printed out! The little ones look good, but the big ones look amazing!
A friend at work helped me work the machine and she was amazed at how good they turned out She told me I should hang some in the coffee shop in town. Her daughter and son-in-law own it, and she will be getting it when they move. Nobody has ever offered that high of praise before, so I am pretty happy about that. :)
So I’m sure you’re all wondering, which 10 pictures did I choose? Well, wonder no more, because here they are.
There were 9 categories and I could only enter one picture per category. I am also entering one in the Contemporary/Creative Photography division, as it is the only place where digitally manipulated images are allowed. For that one I chose a shot of some leaves I had taken.

I took the shot from underneath so the light shone through them. The digital manipulation comes from the fact that I really boosted the color saturation. And really, this picture does not do it justice. It looks so much better in print! I’m sure that all my pictures would look better printed out.
OK, now for the main 9 categories. First up is “People”.

I took this at the zoo from far away with my zoom lens. It was a totally lucky shot, but it is one of my favorites.
The second category is “Scenic and Landscape”.

I spotted this pole on a walk once, and I thought it would make a good picture. The lighting and sky were perfect.
The third category is “Life in  Iowa”. If you read last night’s post you’ll remember what I WANTED to enter. If you didn’t see it click HERE. But I do have a great picture that I decided to enter. It doesn’t really scream “IOWA” but it was taken here, so it counts!

I took a whole bunch of pictures that evening, all of this tree with that sunset effect, but this one is still my favorite. I may have to do a post on my photo blog with all the variations so you can see them all.
The fourth category is “Flowers, Plants, and Insects”. I really don’t think that’s fair, because that cuts down three pictures I could have chosen, and limits it to one. I did find one that fit in all three though.

I hadn’t even noticed the ladybug until later, so this picture turned out better than I’d hoped.
The fifth category is another unfair category. “Animals and Birds” really needs to be two separate categories. It’s hard enough to choose one animal and one bird, but then to have to choose only one single picture?! Come on people! I want to show more of my pictures than that! I finally decided on a picture that I just took on Saturday on my most recent trip to the zoo.

I thought it looked like the pink parrot was whispering in the cockatoo’s ear. :)
The sixth category was also hard. “Miscellaneous”. That could be anything! I finally decided on a picture I took of a flamingo’s tail.

I have a bunch that look pretty similar to this, but I chose this one because I thought the fact that the head was in the background added just a little something extra, and made it a little better than the rest.
The seventh category had me stumped for a little bit. “Action Pictures”. I don’t really take action pictures, but I wanted to get a picture in every category. Then I remembered. DUH! The PBR Challenge! *Facepalm* How could I forget that?! I went into my folder of pictures that I am saving for my photography blog.

Since it didn’t allow digital manipulation, I had to take it back into the program and undo the color adjustments I had done to it, and it’s now cropped slightly differently than the one that I will be posting on my photo blog, but it’s essentially the same After it was printed out though, I didn’t care. It looks amazing!
Number eight is “Things/Still Life”, and it was also a bit of a challenge for me to find a good picture. I don’t really do still life photography, so I didn’t know what to enter. I went WAY back to when I first got my camera at the beginning of the year. I had experimented with it the first night I had gotten it, and I had come up with a pretty silly picture.

I figured it may not win any awards, but it might give people a laugh. :)
The last category is “Structures”. I knew instantly which photo I was going to enter.

I just took this one on Saturday as well. It is the inside of the Desert Dome at the zoo. I thought it looked really cool with the clouds outside.
I took the photos to a friend to get them matted for display, so I’ll do another post when I get them back. They’re going to look so good! :)
I am planning a few other entries as well, some artwork, a couple paintings and a drawing for sure. I’ll keep you posted on what I do. :)
By the way, Be sure to check my photo blog later too, I am going to post large versions of all of my entries so you can see the details better.

EDIT: The photos are up on J. North Photography. You can check them out HERE.