It’s that time again.
Following the success of last year’s CL Photo Contest — close to 250 photographers submitted 475 photos to win cash prizes and exhibitions — we’re introducing the second edition of the contest, CL Visions. And this year we’re adding a video competition to the mix.
The theme for both contests is “Time.” You’re free to interpret the theme as broadly or as specifically as you like (speed, stasis, past, future, daytime, nighttime, the space-time continuum — any of these or none of these, it’s up to you). And in the case of the video contest, you’re literally going to be working against time: The limit for video submissions is 60 seconds or less.
The grand prize for the winner of each contest, photo and video, is $1,000. And the percs this year are better than ever. The top 10 photographers, plus the Readers’ Choice winner, will, as they did last year, receive family memberships to the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts. And this year they’ll get a beautiful new showcase: a two-month-long gallery exhibition (March 29-May 27) at FMOPA’s brand new home in the iconic Rivergate Tower (aka The Cube, adjacent to the building more commonly known as the Beercan — see Kevin Tighe’s photo at right).
The top-finishing videos will also get major exposure. They’ll be shown during the Gasparilla International Film Festival (March 29-April 1) at a special awards screening on March 30, and before feature films throughout the festival. In addition, each of the top 10 finalists and the Readers’ Choice winner will receive a Filmmaker’s Pass, granting them admission to all GIFF screenings and to the Filmmakers’ Hospitality Suite, where they can hobnob with other industry professionals.
We’re accepting photo and video entries now through March 1 at cltampa.com/visions, where you’ll find complete contest rules and guidelines. The judges for the photo contest include Rebecca Sexton Larson, 2005 Tampa Photographer Laureate and co-founder of Boxfotos Airstream; FMOPA Curator Joann Milani; and CL’s Megan Voeller and Todd Bates, our visual art critic and creative director, respectively. Megan will also help judge the video contest, along with Wendy Babcox, associate professor in the School of Art and Art History at USF, and Joe Bardi, CL associate editor and movies/TV site editor.
Readers can vote on their favorites at cltampa.com/visions. The judges’ choices for the top 10 photos will be published in the March 29 CL Visions issue of Creative Loafing, as will the top vote-getter among readers. The Grand Prize winner will be announced at the FMOPA show opening reception on March 29. Video finalists’ names will be listed in the March 29 CL issue, and the top 10, Readers’ Choice and Grand Prize winners will be announced at the GIFF screening on March 20.
Can your visions win you a thousand bucks? Enter and find out.
While we’re on the subject of contests, I also want to draw your attention to the return of another competition we introduced last year. 10/100/1000 — a joint effort of Creative Loafing and Creative Tampa Bay to find 10 great ideas to make Tampa Bay a better place to live — brought in an extraordinary array of inspired, inventive and occasionally loony ideas that culminated in an award of $1,000 to the founders of Swings Tampa Bay, the grass-roots initiative to hang handmade swings in unexpected places (find out more at swingstampabay.com). Since then, the two ebullient young entrepreneurs who came up with that beautifully simple idea — Reuben Pressman and Hunter Payne — have continued to enrich Tampa Bay with their can-do, why-not attitude. (Read about Hunter’s latest endeavor here.)
In providing start-up money to promising projects, CL and CTB are part of a micro-funding, community-based movement that is growing more popular all the time in Tampa Bay (Hampton Dohrman’s Thing Small to Think Big) and around the world (Kickstarter). To my mind, one of the benefits of 10/100/1000, in addition to the financial incentive it provides, is the conversation it generates. I think back to the awards evening last spring when the finalists got to meet each other, along with a tribe of entrepreneurial students from USF St. Pete. The mix of inventors, activists and forward thinkers, of solid business plans and ideas so crazy they just might work, made for a party as invigorating as any I remember in CL Space.
So here’s to an even bigger party in 2012. We’ll launch 10/100/1000 on Feb. 23, and at that time you’ll find all the details at cltampa.com/ten100. We can’t wait to hear your great ideas.
This article appears in Feb 9-15, 2012.