The County Fair, Continued....

                                          The County Fair, Continued....

   Just wanted to finish up and share the other winning photographs I entered in the Fair this year and tell a little background on each.


   One of my favorites is the black and white portrait of my own mother, Thelma Mork.  She’s amazing, as I'm sure I’ve mentioned before.  She is 83 yrs old and I worry that I don’t know how much time I have left with her.  She could be gone tomorrow, or she could make it to the same age as my grandmother, which was over 100.  So lately any time I get a chance I take pictures of her, doing every day normal things.  In this photo she was studying for her Bible group.  

   Next is the color portrait of a couple our group visited during a mission trip to Haiti.  We were told that the couple put on their best outfit, so it fascinated me that she had on her shower cap, part of her worldly goods.  It was eye opening when we have so much as to how little these people had, and yet they had their dignity and wanted to put their best foot forward.  In spite of their poverty and their age and their strange dress, I thought these people were just beautiful.  Maybe that is how God sees us.  We put on our finery and He thinks, wait til you come to Heaven to live and I put on some royal robes on you.  It only got third place, but the man said I would have gotten better but they thought I had photo-shopped the tree into the background.  FYI, I did not.  It was in Haiti.  That tree was growing there as seen in the photo.  It's just a strange optical illusion that makes the house look like it is behind the one leaf.  

 

   This church photo I took in Pennsylvania near my grandmothers in Weatherly.  We went on a trip to visit family there for my grandmother’s hundredth birthday in October, so the leaves were turning and everything was beautiful with crisp Fall weather.  I love old churches and old barns, so this was a must have when I walked to the river one day.  It even has the old metal bell up in the belfry. I love the way the colors contrasted in this one, and apparently so did the judges.  I got a second place in the Color Landscape entry.

    Last but most certainly not least, is a black and white landscape I entered. The car photograph which I did in black and white, was an old car that was built probably in the early 1930’s by my great uncle Wilfred.  He was into racing when he was young, and they built their own race cars from parts and scraps they could find.  He has since passed away and this is what remains of those early glory days. I thought it was beautiful in the secrets and history it held.  It got a blue ribbon, so I guess the judges liked it too. 

   I only had a few weeks to get ready for the fair this year when I decided to try to enter some of my photographs.  So I’m hoping to be better prepared for next year.  But I felt pretty good about my entries this year and look forward to what might happen next year.