~~~ November Photo Contest Winners' Circle ~~~

[JeffR]

Cross-posted from GD.

The winner of the "NAMED AFTER A SONG" contest is the startling, dramatic and extraordinary:

Freeze Frame by soup




Second place goes to this study of "heaven in a wildflower":

I'll Fly Away by alfredo




Third place goes to a poignant portrait of innocence:

Thank Heaven for Little Girls by Mira




And in an echo of the difficulty voters faced with the wealth of glorious interpretations of the theme, the Host's Choice award goes to two photos.

A loving and painterly tribute to sand, surf, sun and family:

Waiting for the Rapture by Adsos Letter




And this melancholy meditation on time and decay from the Photo Group's youngest member:

Journey's End by YoungerGreenKid




Thanks to everyone who entered. It was a novel theme and everyone addressed it with great creativity. Over to you, soup!

[alfredo]

1. Thanks for running a good contest.

[HappyCynic]

2. Congrats, soup!

A big thanks to JeffR for his fantastic job running this contest. A congrats to all the other participants. There were so many fantastic entries that everyone seemed to have a hard time deciding. And not just in the finals, either.

:applause: :toast: :applause:

[HarveyDarkey]

3. All the entries were winners in my book

and thanks to JeffR for all his hard work.

[Adsos Letter]

4. Congratulations to Soup, alfredo, Mira, and YoungerGreenKid for excellent photos!

And thankyou, Jeff, for your gentle assessment of my shot. I can think of others that could well have come before it (all of them, to be precise, as the voting indicated), but I do appreciate the recognition.

Congratulations to everyone who contributed an entry to this contest; all of the photos were of very high quality and made choosing difficult, as the comments on the threads attested.

And thankyou Jeff, for your management of the contest, and the time you invested in it. :thumbsup:

[intheflow]

5. The Top Three

were the best shots of this contest, I concur with the DU voting public for once! :D

Soup's shot is among the finest photos I've ever seen in this forum, and National Geographic-like quality! Kudos especially to you for that great, great shot! :applause:

[Celebration]

6. Congrats, soup and all winners

This was a lot of fun and I know that GD liked this contest.

[Cassandra]

7. Congrats to all the winners!

I still can't believe soup hesitated about including that shot in the contest. It's fantastic.

[soup]

8. Thank you all so much

for your encouragement and support - helluva way to come out of seclusion. Spend so much time alone out in the mangroves and down at the pond with the 'usual suspects', it's strange to find myself back out in the world. Communication is a bit of a struggle, so please bear with me.

When I saw this month's gallery of extraordinary photos, I knew I wanted to be a part of it, but never expected this. Been so long since I've shared any of my pics with anyone, there was no way to know how it would be received.

Now comes the really terrifying bit - hosting December's contest - especially on the heels of JeffR's absolutely seamless work. Unless there's some sort of guide including templates (or divine intervention), you may want to fasten your seat belts. It's definitely gonna be a bumpy ride.
:scared: :crazy: :rofl:

Thanks again and a big Well Done, everyone!

[JeffR]

11. First time I hosted, I solicited help from 4 previous winners.

And thanks to them, I survived, though I managed to screw up a few things all the same.

You'll do fine!

[GreenPartyVoter]

13. You screwed something up? I never even noticed. :^)

[JeffR]

15. It was a pretty egregious error.

One I've at least never repeated in my hosting adventures since. But I still feel terrible whenever I think about it.

[GreenPartyVoter]

16. Aw.. I hate making those kind of mistakes. I'm like you, can't let it go and am haunted forever.

:hug:

[hippywife]

9. Congrats to everyone!

Both the winners and the entrants, every one was an exceptional photo.

YoungerGreenKid already has a great eye and has quite the future ahead of him.

:hi:

[Tuesday Afternoon]

10. congrats to all

and thanks JeffR. I am really learning a lot from you guys. All are just about the best bunch going.

[Mira]

12. What a great ride this was.

Congratulations to soup.
A truly phenomenal photo without any equal of it's kind that comes to mind.

I knew the minute I saw it it would win, except I just about felt the same way about some of the others, Alfredo's being one I adored from the start.
Which is what made the shots coming as submissions so exciting.

There are too many to mention, but a distinct favorite I want to name is "Waiting for the Rapture", it really got me.

It felt wonderful being in the middle of these beautiful creations, and even placing.
I'm honored, but it was not me, really, it was that gorgeous trusting little girl.

[Blues Heron]

14. Well done everybody! Congrats to all!

Just beautiful. Great theme too.

[Mz Pip]

17. congrats to everyone

soup, when I first saw that entry I thought "That's the one." Spectacular shot.

[Callalily]

18. Congrats soup!

When I first saw your pic "Freeze Frame" I just gasped - it is such a fabulous shot. And now your greatest fear has happened - you get to run the contest - LOL! I'm just teasing of course.

Also sending congrats to the other winners.

Each and every contest seems to bring even more talent out, and amazingly, yes this is possible, you are all winners.

[Sacred Fire]

19. Grats!

Just wanted to say congratulations to everyone. It has been an inspirational contest.

We had some power outages here over the holiday and I'm just now able to get back online. I was lucky to have a brief moment of internet access, so I made sure to pop on and vote!

Looking forward to seeing the amazing entries for December's contest! :applause:

[HappyCynic]

22. Looking forward as well

I'm looking forward to seeing all the entries for December as well. I hope I can get a shot good enough to enter.
Now that you're back online and inspired, I hope we'll be seeing an entry from you in the December contest.

[Eurobabe]

20. Fabulous pix! Congrats to all...

:woohoo:

[Adsos Letter]

21. HEY! You have been missed around here.