Photo contest time

Professionally speaking, this is one of my favorite times of the year. We’re deep into taking entries for The Eagle’s Great Outdoors Photo Contest. Entries will be accepted until 5 p.m. next Monday.

Every day is a new adventure as Bo Rader, our chief photographer, and I open envelopes or online entries. Every day there’s a new shot or two that really grabs our attention.

Some are amazingly good, especially this year.

We’re seeing a lot of the usual favored photo subjects – bald eagles and sunsets. We chuckle at how poorly a small percentage of entrants follow entry instructions.

This year there’s a run on owl photos for some reason.

As they have the past eight years the entries have gotten better than before.

To think, the first year a sizable percentage of entries came printed on regular computer paper.

Monday evening or Tuesday will be the toughest time as Bo, some other photographers and I try to narrow 300 or so photos down to 15 adult and 5 youth finalists.

As I look at the final selection of photos I can’t help but try to figure which ones will be voted the best when the public votes in a few weeks.

Last year I was right the first time I saw David Birmingham’s amazing photo of a brilliant male cardinal flying through a snow-covered cedar. A couple of years my initial favorite is voted out of the  pool of finalists by all the other photographers

This year?

To be honest, we have so many great entries I’m not even sure which ones I’d pick to be finalists, let alone which adult and which youth entries might win.

Like I said, it’s a lot of fun.

(For more details about The Great Outdoors Photo Contest go to www.kansas.com/outdoors.)

This story was originally published February 4, 2010 at 9:39 PM with the headline "Photo contest time."