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Arts & Entertainment

Fenton's Billmeier Camera Shop Begins Photo Contest

Anyone can enter; theme for October is Pets and Animals.

Photographers, clean your lenses.

in Fenton has a new photo contest for anyone who would like to participate. Entering is free, and one winner each month will receive a 16 by 20 print, said Amanda Burton, who is coordinating the contest. The seventh month of the contest is open only to the six winners from the previous months, and one of them will receive a grand prize.

The idea for the circular contest came from a Billmeier Camera Shop customer, Garrett Gormley, who suggested it on the business' Facebook page, Burton said.

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The first month's winner, for September, is Jessica Brown, who submitted a photograph of an Indian woman on her wedding day. It's a stunning photograph that's on display in the store and on Billmeier Camera Shop's Facebook page, Burton said.

"It is definitely a fine art piece," she said.

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The photographer used natural light to capture the shot.

Employees at the camera shop vote for their favorite photos, Burton said. Since they all have different personalities, their choices can be different.

They are judging based on creativity, rules of composition, use of lighting, originality, exposure and emotion, she said.

The theme for October's contest is Pets & Animals. 

Customers at Billmeier Camera Shop are likely to notice the resident pet, Mr. Bill, a brown tabby cat. Owner Terry Green has had the cat for almost four years, since his aunt, who worked for a veterinary clinic, rescued it. Burton said the cat was abandoned in the parking lot of the veterinary clinic, and Green's aunt couldn't take in another cat.

More about the contest, from Billmeier Camera Shop

The Format:
* This will be an ongoing contest open to any level of photographer. We will be taking digital submissions that may be dropped off in store on some form of digital media or can be e-mailed to info@fentoncamera.com in jpeg format. Entries are limited to 1 image per person per month. Images will be displayed digitally in store and will be judged by Billmeier staff.

The winner will receive a printed and mounted 16x20 of their image which will be displayed in store with any information about the print and an artist bio for the month until another winner is selected. If all goes well we will hold another contest after 6 months for the winners of the past monthly contests. The prize for this contest is currently undecided.

The Way It Works:

* We will start accepting submissions on the 1st of each month prior to the month the contest will run (ex. submissions can be made from Sept. 1 to end of the month for the October contest. Images will be displayed through October while new submissions are made). We know this means a little more of a wait but it allows participants to submit their entries.

A new entry should be submitted each month and should meet the monthly theme if a theme is selected for that month.

Submission Criteria:

Images must be family friendly...PG rated! We are a family shop, any entries that aren't safe for anyone or everyone to see won't be included. Images should be high resolution jpegs. If an image isn't high enough resolution to print a 16x20 from it will be printed as large as the file will allow without losing anything from the image.

Artist's name, contact information (which will be kept private), any information about the image and a brief artist bio should be included with each entry. We will print out the image info and bio to be displayed with any winning image.
We will make adjustments to the contest as we see how it is going.

We look forward to your submissions and we hope this will be fun for everyone! Be sure to stop in to see the entries that we have had!

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