I haven't managed to make it a priority since we arrived up north. The stress was enough to spoil any enjoyment until I could finally relax and put it on my list. Of course, the real impetus was their newest photo contest starting yesterday. For those interested, you can find them online, including rules and last year's submissions.
I didn't enter last year. But I decided to give it a go again this year. The photo I'm most emotionally invested in wasn't even shot until fall, long after the contest ended. And my most recent submission for this year was shot this morning.
They give you 6 categories, limit of one per each, or a total of 6. I wrangled up 4, and that was a process. Before the move north I got into my head that I needed to clear a whole sh**load of photos from my laptop. Mostly it was because I needed to update my software - virus protection and stuff - and I had no room to do so. Thus, off to the store for thumbdrives, and more thumbdrives. Tape on labels for the category of photos on each, so I know where to find stuff. One such category was Crex. Its photos went on two thumbdrives. (I bought bigger ones later.) Another was videos, another people, another miscellaneous travels. There are more, and I never did finish loading them up. But it was enough space to update my software, with the newly (yesterday) discovered bonus that it's suddenly very easy to format a photo file during cropping into a variety of shapes, like 8x10, what the contest requires. I'd tried it before and there was a series of steps with symbols I didn't understand and can't remember. No problem anymore.
What was a very big problem is that the second Crex thumbdrive isn't in my zipper bag of them. I went through them yesterday and looked. And looked again. I had specific photos in mind to submit this year. Exactly one of them was in my laptop. I took extra special care to keep it and another copy formatted for size, partly because I had in mind a second project for it as well. Some time after I'm all unpacked and with more time on my hands......
After about two hours of searching, I had another idea. I dug through old SD cards. There might be at least one other special photo I'd had in mind to submit with a very special caption, still sitting on one of those. I keep SD cards in my camera case along with spare charged batteries. Sometimes I write over them, as in taking the "erase after download" option. Sometimes I keep them as is, once full. (What? You wanted logic and consistency?)
I managed to find two more shots, the one I had the caption for, and one "good enough" in another category I seldom find things to shoot. So, three to submit then.
This year it's all online. I started mid afternoon, making sure the files were in 8x10 format, and had names other than a big number-dot-jpg. That turned into a good choice. I could find them later. The first part went quickly with autofill. Hmmm, they keep a file on me, do they? OK, good to know. I couldn't figure how exactly to add the photo file to their form. Good thing their office wasn't closed yet. After three phone calls and my trying to remember all the steps I'd been talked through, this second time around without their guidance (fail!), I finally got that figured out.
Now to pay. I entered a card number. Their form informed me it wasn't a valid card number. Say what? I've been using it like gangbusters for the last three months, as well as paying it back down to keep it in good standing. A peek at the end of their scold was a four digit number which, as soon as I dug out the other card to try to use that one, looked very familiar. Hmmmm, very interesting! It was that card's last 4 digits. OK, I entered that car info, and got the same scold to enter a valid card number. WTF? Steve offered my use of his card, so I started over, with his name and all new other information.
SAME DANG SCOLD!
Of course it was five minutes past their office hours, so I had to wait for morning to try again. And then, still no go. I'd left an early morning message about the issue, and offered to come up in person to pay if I had to. They'd gotten my message, put their IT person to work, and when I finally arrived in person, still didn't know if the system was working yet for online payments, but my card worked just fine at their register.
Now if you had to lay odds on whether, given an excuse to go to my favorite place to shoot pictures, I'd have thought to pop my camera in the car, how would you bet? Yep, Steve thought so too. And besides, there were categories I had no photo entries for.
Then.
One more has now been submitted. And I can assure you that their online submission process is currently flawless. They added a line for the zip code... so I just had to recall which one I'd changed the card over to, current or future.
While I won't show you any current submissions, I did dig into the newest selection of photos not going into the contest. These are Crex this morning, post rain, still cloudy so light conditions are pretty good, and mostly cropped smaller to give this blog smaller files to fight with. Hope you enjoyed.
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