Tag Archives: prints

Orange County Fair 2011: A Winner is Me!

California, Photography, ,

I entered a few pictures into the 2011 Orange County Fair’s juried photography competition, and was ecstatic when I heard that two pictures I’d taken of a flowering octopus agave (Agave vilmoriniana) had made it through the screening.

Greg, of Alpenglow Images, had alerted me to the presence of the agave on OCC’s campus, and the first picture came from a series I took with him back in March just after sunrise on a rainy morning (my Agave and Aloe Inflorescences gallery). At the time, the agave’s inflorescence was still growing, and the flowers were only buds protected by long spines:

Closeup of flower buds on the Agave vilmoriniana inflorescence. (Marc Perkins)
The Future. Closeup of flower buds on the Agave vilmoriniana inflorescence.

The second picture was taken about a month later (my Flowering Agave gallery), when the inflorescence was fully in bloom:

A flowering Agave on Orange Coast College's campus strives for the attention of pollinators (and photographers). I love the contrast of the yellow flowers on the blue sky. Agave vilmoriniana, octopus agave. (Marc C. Perkins)
A flowering Agave on Orange Coast College's campus strives for the attention of pollinators (and photographers).

I printed the pictures up, delivered them on the appropriate day, and heard nothing. My primary goal for this endeavor had been to just get my pictures through the pre-screening, which I’d heard wasn’t easy1, so my only remaining goal was just to see them hanging on the wall.

I’d been planning to head to the fair Wednesday (for their free admission with donation), but then just before I headed out the door I opened up my e-mail to find an invitation to the OC Fair awards ceremony! It was thus with much excitement and anticipation that I arrived at the photography exhibit, and navigated my way through the many beautiful images2 to the amateur plant category:

Pictures in the amateur color prints of plants cateogry at the 2011 Orange County Fair. There were tons of gorgeous entries. My prize winning picture is in the upper right corner. (Marc C. Perkins)
Approximately a quarter of the pictures in the amateur color prints of plants category at the 2011 Orange County Fair. There were many gorgeous entries.

A quick look near my image resulted in pure happiness:

A picture of me with my winning entry at the 2011 Orange County Fair. The first place blue ribbon is so pretty! My photograph was in the amateur color print of plants category. Many thanks to Nafis, who kindly took this picture of me. (Marc C. Perkins)
Me with my winning entry at the 2011 Orange County Fair. The first place blue ribbon is so pretty! Many thanks to Nafis, who kindly took this picture of me.

I won first place in the amateur plants color category!

It was a great start to the day, which I topped off with a deep fried Snickers, the absolute best way to eat a Snickers ever.

Many thanks to the judges!

Next up: Michelle entered a project into the recycled materials division, and I had an excuse (of the blue ribbon kind!) to take lots of pictures of that as well.

1 And what I heard was accurate: of the 3,774 entries into the amateur photography division this year, only 774 were accepted (a 20.5% acceptance rate).

2 The overall quality of the images this year was amazingly high; I found many of the “amateur” prints to be equal to or better than many pro images I’ve seen. There were hundreds of images on display, and the vast majority of them were absolutely excellent. If you’re looking for a fun way to see a wide diversity of great photography, I highly recommend heading to the OC Fair this year.

More pictures

To see more pictures from the two shoots, head to my Agave and Aloe Inflorescences gallery and my Flowering Agave gallery.

Getting There

Orange County Fair: The Orange County Fair runs from July 15 to August 14 at the county fairgrounds in Costa Mesa, CA; they conveniently have a directions page here. Since I can just park on OCC’s campus and walk to the fair, I don’t know what the parking situation is like, sorry.

Ordering from BWC Photo through Photoshelter

Products, Reviews, , , , ,

[Updated June 8, 2011; see comments at the bottom]

I recently switched my website hosting to Photoshelter, a hosting company targeted at photographers.  Photoshelter supports direct image sales on their hosted sites though a number of print vendors, and I’m now using BWC Photo Imaging to supply my prints. This means that when someone wants a print of mine (editor’s note: shouldn’t that be a very big “if”, not “when”?) they can peruse the options online, order what they want directly from my website, pay via PayPal or credit card, and have the print shipped directly to them from the printer1.

To test out the service I ordered a wide variety of prints, ranging in size from 4×6″ through 12×18″, along with a photo mug.  Ordering was easy (click “buy” on the image’s page, choose size, choose cropping, lather, rinse, repeat), though there was an unspecified problem with my order after I placed it that held it up for a few days.  I never found out what the problem was, but Photoshelter’s support looked into it quickly, and a week and a half after I placed the order it arrived on my doorstep.


Everything came in a large outer box, and while the padding in the box was reused paper envelopes, they were surdy enough to keep everything in place. The two inner boxes were shrinkwrapped together, helping hold them in place.

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