Gainesville is sponsoring a contest for residents to show how they see the community – not just with their eyes but through their lenses.
The second annual Gainesville Photography Contest is a competition open to amateur and professional photographers to depict their perspective of the city.
The Gainesville Communications office and the Cultural Affairs division initiated the contest as a way to give residents a community-building project that will get their minds off daily life, explained Laura Rawson, marketing and communications assistant at the communications office.
“We hope to get people to put their troubles on the back burner,” she said.
The photographs should address the theme “Gainesville in Motion” and any of six categories, including “on the move,” “time to work, time to play,” “forces of nature,” “energy in motion,” “seniors on the move” and “living la vida loca.”
“This is definitely an innovative city, so we always seem to be on the move,” Rawson said.
Although the judges dictate the categories and do not allow any digital manipulation of the photographs, they encourage creativity in the entries.
“It could be [a picture of] someone riding their bike or it could be a picture of a bike,” she said. “We don’t want to put limitations on the artists.”
Last year’s winner, Hugo Cruz, a local artist who works in the mediums of photography, acrylic painting and metal art, used a near-infrared filter on his camera to block most humanly visible light and photographed Century Tower in downtown Gainesville.
“It’s an iconic structure, and it represents what I like about Gainesville most: Not only its historical architecture but also the incredible arboreal feel of the city,” he said.
Cruz, a UF alumnus, explained that the contest allows photographers with all sorts of experience “to use their hidden talents to put their own spin on Gainesville.”
No more than 500 photographs will be judged, and the submission deadline is Sept. 30.
The 20 finalist photographs will be on display at an exhibition at the Hippodrome State Theater in January, and the grand-prize winning photograph will be unveiled by Gainesville Mayor Craig Lowe and printed in the upcoming 2010 Citizen’s Report.
For more information and guidelines visit photos.cityofgainesville.org.
