The submissions are in, at least from me. I admit to needing help this year, not with the photos per se, but with getting them onto the form to send in via computer. My granddaughter is much more computer literate than I am, and welcomed a visit. No taking 8 x 10 photos over by hand, no writing out information on each one like my name, contact info, title of the shot, location of shot (very restricted area qualifies) and the modest submission price to cover their turning my electric file into an 8x10, mounting all submissions, and printing out voting sheets. In each category anybody who walks into the building can vote in each category for top places, with a final vote for best in show. You have to actually show up for that. It opens the 24th and closes... well, it's written down somewhere here in the house. Or check online.
My skills are fine for moving a thumbnail out of my photo files, onto my desktop, and then onto a standard email or into my blog. I admit it took me a long time to figure out the blog glitch. I needed a hole to drag the thumbnail into, meaning it needed a line of text both before it and after it with a line of space in between. It was by accident of course. Nobody ever explained it. One day it worked, the next months it didn't, but eventually I tired it again and again until I finally figured it out.
Here's my space, created ahead time to go back and plunk a photo into. This photo above I'm calling "Butterfly Magnet" and its category is wildflowers. I could have done it featuring the butterfly instead, but here it is. What else is the point of a flower?
This one goes there too, and is simply called "Blue Wall." It's not that I have high hopes for it, but we are allowed/restricted to two photos per category, and I figure paying for more photos is a way to both have fun submitting, and supporting them from the modest fees for entering. I have been known to email them an occasional photo for permitted use if they like it, unconnected to their contest, just for the fun of what it shows, not for any hope of being in a contest. But that is still the most fun, and the only way to see what others are shooting.
Landscapes are another category, and this particular shot, "April Reflections". is hard to get unless you go there in early spring after ice is gone but before the trees leaf out and the water between them and shore hasn't filled up with water lilies yet. It's actually the first time I'd gotten there that early in the year. The clouds were just a bonus. Like most details they show much better in reflections when the photo is up to an 8x10 size, what all submissions are printed out in for viewing.
My personal favorite shot for this contest is this one, taken late last September. I'd finally, in all the years going there, figured out where Fish Lake was. I know, it's on their maps, but I just needed to figure out a reason to go there when the lake is mostly hidden in trees with little direct shore access. Most visits already take enough time that I never explored further. Once I finally did, I managed to notice the sign to the boat launch, the only feasible way to actually reach the water. The road ruts there are so deep my little car was bottoming out unless I steered with one side in the high middle and the other on a high side, rather than in the ruts other vehicles had made through the years. There's a strip of land at the end of the road in that's wide enough for a boat to get backed down, though in the times I've visited since finding the spot I've never seen sign of a boat there, nor a trailer bringing one. I managed to walk down avoiding the plentiful poison ivy.
This was just after last year's contest when "night landscapes" was a category. I never had a night shot there, period. I decided I wanted something where I could take advantage of lake reflections and the direction I wanted to shoot in , from west to east, didn't yield close water access along a wide uninterrupted stretch of open water. Maybe a full moon? Finding the boat launch was perfect. So was the calendar. I knew the harvest moon was coming up, though that was before hearing that technically this was the second full moon in the month so it was officially the Corn Moon, so the harvest moon would be in October. Almost nobody I ever talked with got that message - but not my problem.
I thought my opportunity was spoiled when it rained near the time to leave for the shot. Plus I had a 40 minute drive to get there. But it finally cleared, leaving rainbows locally, and on impulse I decided to head over and see what I could see - or even better, shoot. The storm had moved off to the east, but the clouds were so tall, that while the sun was setting behind me their tops were high enough to catch the sunset colors. I had to wait for the moon to clear the lower clouds, but I arrived just in time to blitz about 20 shots before all the light was wrong. Nobody else was around who could have gotten a similar shot. It could only happen from that side of a lake, and few opportunities exist in the allowed photo area with a road along the west and enough open water for the reflections. "Corn Moon Rising After The Storm" should be completely unique. I make a point of that after last year's contest where nearly all the submissions were a night with auroras caught in sky and lake, so similar that when I was voting I couldn't tell enough difference between them to pick a favorite.
So many years the same bunches of photos come in. There are a lot of breeding trumpeter swans in that area, so water shots often are loaded with those for the bird category. Of course sandhill cranes are a huge draw as well, but the 30,000 acres hold a lot of other birds to shoot in addition. I've done my share of trying all of those. Lots of other people do it better. Sometimes I have to go for unique instead.
This is a trumpeter swan, taken in early April. The day I was there I shot photos of three different swans in this position, one I'd never seen before. So... try going for unique. Research informed me they were working to regulate their body temperature by sprawling across the water like this. They had just migrated north and ice was recently out, so I could make a case in my head for them either warming or cooling themselves, and spent hours arguing both cases against the other. Mostly they looked exhausted, as still as they were sprawled, only the head barely moving for proof of life. I opted to title this one based on that impression, so this is "Don't Wake Me Till Saturday!"
I had another unique-for-me shot from years back that I spent weeks hunting fruitlessly for after our move back north. I finally gave that one up as a lost cause, along with a huge bunch of Crex photos from previous years, completely within the timescale of shooting allowed. I did however have a set of "nearly as good" shots, if I could ignore lying to myself about how settling for one of those would be OK.
One of these days I will have to ask where they are nesting these days. I've been assured some are still within the area. Most years a staffer will happily point out what's special in which location that day, like a wolf den entrance along a road that season, or a drying pond holding a dozen great blue herons scarfing the more easily available fish, or even three stray whooping cranes joining the sandhills before migrating south. This year's greeter isn't quite so forthcoming with information.
I referred above to night landscapes last year. It was a special category that one time. This year the special category is "Animal Families". It has to show both adult(s) and young in the same photo, interacting. I have bunches of those in Canada geese families as well as trumpeter swan families. It's the main reason why I keep going there, of course. I manage the occasional crane with a colt, or even a doe and fawn I entered last year... but I entered that one last year. The shots I selected for that category are pretty much what everybody gets, and most of those much better. But as I've said, much behind these is to support Crex. I go there to shoot pictures when I can, rather than shop in their store. So these are my way to give back.
This turkey family along one of the roads is just two from a string of them, picked not for numbers of birds since I was too close in my car to get a wide angle, but for the best color in the adult. I had fun watching them in small groups scooting into the grasses and popping out again, presumably with a meal. I rarely get this close to wild turkeys, but this one reminds me of a time when I was working and pulled into the dock area of a business only to be attacked by turkeys defending "their" territory. What stuck with me the longest was how blue the head and neck of the meanest one was. At least these were shot with a good zoom lens! The car managed to keep pace with them for a bit, until they stayed hidden in the grass, but the only title which came to mind was "Turkey Trot".
There are a lot of possibilities for "shooting" Canada geese in open water where the family is gliding along. Sorry, but BORING! I got this family stretched out along the edge of a pond next to the road. This one was my favorite even though it only shows five of the goslings of the seven in another shot. I figured this family was as successful as it was because they were playing "Hide and Seek In The Rushes".
There are a lot of predators both from above and below that find them quite tasty, and later season shots tend to show smaller families.
If any of this gives you a desire to see even better photos in the contest, go visit Crex later this month if you'd like to vote, or all during the coming year since all the submissions are displayed in the visitor center lobby until the next contest. It's on the north side of Grantsburg, WI. That's close to Minnesota on US 70. The town has a nice campground if that's your thing. If you want to get your own shots, maps are available for free of the wildlife areas. Just be polite and drive slowly so as not to raise dust clouds or scare the critters into hiding or flying. Everybody is welcomed, free of charge.
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