Our 5th International Photo Salon

Dear friends,
To break with our routine and hurricane related things, this post is about something else – although surely hurricane Maria still plays its role in many aspects of life – this one included.

Some of you may remember that every year we organize international photo competition under patronage of such important organizations as RPS, FIAP, PSA and others. This year was no exception – although it was totally different and we will remember it for a long time.

The hurricane Maria made our 5th edition of Ozone Zone International Photo Competition much harder to run. Originally scheduled for November, judging of submitted photos had to be postponed.

One juror had to be emergency evacuated to another island as her family member required immediate medical treatment of hurricane inflicted injuries. Another juror had to bring family out of Dominica – also due to hurricane impact. And another juror along with Salon’s chair person – Derek and Margaret (which is us) lost their newly built house, many personal belongings, and were living in their Subaru car for several weeks after. Not the perfect scenario for finalizing a prestigious photo salon.

We rescheduled closing of the Salon to end of March, but even that proved to be a real challenge.
Although all jurors had a chance to meet and work together after sorting personal matters, it wasn’t exactly smooth.

Eight months on we still have no internet (to post this or deal with online salon submissions we need to travel to another town in hope of finding a spot with reasonable connection). The house we used for judging is badly damaged and leaks with every rain. We reviewed photos on a smallish monitor and a laptop (computer and big screen used before were damaged) using generator as the source of electricity, without running water or any other conveniences.

Reviewing all photos submitted from all corners of the planet while we felt cut-off from the rest of the world had been almost surreal experience. Seeing so many really fine photographs was uplifting and inspiring, reminding us that there is still room for creativity and beauty in our world – and that daily chores do not need to always end with using chainsaw or any other tools we used so extensively to survive the past months.

It was a good edition of our Salon although we nicknamed it “the Hurricane Edition”.
Now we are just finishing off all related duties such as sending medals and awards, reports to FIAP, PSA and other photo organizations, and so on.

We want to share with you a few best photos in hope they will give you lots of viewing pleasure.
You can see much more on competition’s website www.internationalphotocompetition.com on page WINNERS. This year’s categories were OPEN, LOVE, PORTRAIT and NUDE, MONOCHROME.
Enjoy, and until next time.

Derek and Margaret

Please note – all images are copyrighted, no usage without authors’ written authorization.