Photo competition focuses on arboretum's beauty

They came. They communed with nature. They took photos. They won.

The Chesapeake Arboretum held its inaugural photo contest and announced the names of its 13 winners, ages 8 to adult.

A total of 39 contestants in either the child (ages 6-12), young adult (13-18) or adult (19 and older) categories entered more than 100 photos. Each was eligible to enter three works, taken between June 2007 and June 2008, in any of the three subject categories: “The Big Picture,” to show views of the trails and grounds; “Plants,” to include trees, flowers and/or vegetation, and “Living Creatures,” to feature people, birds, insects and/or animals spotted on Arboretum grounds, located at 624 Oak Grove Road, between North Battlefield Boulevard and Greentree Road.

The Grand Prize went to adult contestant G. Michael Brown, who won with his impressionistic color study of a tulip, titled “In Living Color,” which will now be on permanent display at the Arboretum headquarters.

An exhibit of all the winning photos is currently on a tour of Chesapeake, making city stops each month through next July. Currently the photos are on display at the Indian River Library. They head to the Bean There Café in Greenbrier in October.

All shots had to be snapped anywhere within the Arboretum’s 50 acres of bucolic urban greenness. The contest was organized to celebrate the Arboretum’s 20th anniversary, showcase its amenities and natural beauty and draw people to its 2.5 miles of trails and paths, and the gardens, tree nurseries, flower beds and historic Caleb Williamson House headquarters building on its five acre grounds.

“We wanted this to help increase people’s enjoyment of and exposure to the Arboretum,” said Nancie Laing, a member of the Arboretum board, one of the contest’s judges and the competition’s main organizer. “I think it worked. It encouraged more people to come. There’s a lot of stuff to photograph here in any season.”

And Laing should know. An itinerant photographer herself, she has shot and designed the Arboretum’s annual calendar the last several years, creating a work to stand equal to those expensive ones found at chain book- stores.

She was especially heartened to see family units enjoying the “outdoor classroom’s” grounds and competition.

“We saw children and their parents and husbands and wives out there taking photographs,” she said. “It made this a total family affair; apparently, they all went out to the Arboretum together”

Laing said she and the rest of the Arboretum’s board thought the contest, especially for an inaugural one, was a success, although more teen entries would have been desirable.

“We only got one teen to participate. The next time we hope to attract more – they have such a wonderful energy and perspective on the world,” she said. “But we were tickled to see so many children enter and show up with their parents. It was fun to see how both would take a photo of the same subject but come away with different points of view, angles and perspectives.”

Laing and the other four judges said they had a difficult time picking the winners because there were so many worthy entries. The winners were chosen anonymously, with choices based solely on the quality of each image.

The other judges were Tom McElvy, a graduate of the New York Institute of Photography and president of the Virginia Beach Photography Club; JoAnn Jemmott, one of the founding members of the Hampton Roads Digital Photography Club; Tom Siegmund, a photography teacher at the Tidewater Community College’s School of Visual Arts, and Bill Tiernan, an award-winning photo-journalist for the past 34 years and staff photographer with The Virginian-Pilot.

All winners will have their images placed on souvenir mugs, mouse pads, T-shirts, tiles, posters and framed prints available through the Arboretum’s online gift shop handled by Cafe Press (www.cafepress.com).

The contest will return, but when and how often is still in development.

“We have not yet decided how we want to do it in the future,” Laing explained. “It took a lot of work, especially for the three or so volunteers who handled the whole thing. We may do it every five years, annually, or intermittently, we don’t know yet. But we do know, during the contest the Arboretum saw more foot traffic and more families, and it offered us great publicity. Overall, it’s a good thing, we need to figure out future logistics.”

Eric Feber, 222-5203, eric.feber@pilotonline.com