"Show Us Your Neighborhood," we demanded, and close to 250 photographers did just that, sending 475 photos to the Creative Loafing Photo Contest for examination by our distinguished panel of judges: Todd Bates, CL creative director; Jeremy Chandler, 2008 Tampa Photographer Laureate; Joanne Milani, curator of the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts; Paul Pelak, director of the digital photography program at the International Academy of Design & Technology; and Megan Voeller, CL visual arts critic.
The photos below are the judges' 10 favorites, plus the biggest votegetter among readers. The top three, including the $1,000 first-place winner, will be announced during Sensory Overload, our annual multidisciplinary arts bash on March 26 at the Glazer Children's Museum in Tampa. We'll be displaying all of the entries that night as part of an evening of music, theater, dance, art, food and drink. (Go to cltampa.com/SensoryOverload for tickets.)
The entries reflected a wide range of perspectives on our still-photogenic region — including reinterpretations of "photogenic." Take, for instance, Andy Herbon's shot of the overgrown entrance to an upscale Tampa housing development that never got built; or Eric Seibert's hauntingly lit St. Pete Beach restrooms; or Anne Rogers' almost Rockwellian treatment of a Central Avenue diner in the morning.
Others took familiar sights and shed new light (or shadow) upon them — like the sense of mystery in Nick Nicks' portrait of the RV Stonehenge on I-275 and in Tony A. Blue's Little Trailer Boy, or the sheer awesomeness of Russell Missonis' Dunedin Lightning Strike.
Some shots stop time, seizing on a diver in mid-flip (Nicole Collins' Pier Hangout), a newlywed couple in mid-twirl (Kim Saavedra's Last Dance of the Night), or a hardware store engulfed in flames (Tom Palmer's End of a Friend). Some, by focusing on a face, captured the soul of a neighborhood (Andrea Lypka's Fires of Gomorrah).
And which was the most-photographed neighborhood? The count was close, but the winner was a district that until recently didn't have that many neighbors in it: Downtown Tampa. Which makes it apt that the Readers' Choice winner was a striking Tampa skyline view called Downtown Nights.
Thanks to all who entered — and see you at Sensory Overload!
This article appears in Mar 24-30, 2011.