TnT Unleashed 1pic4twenty Blog

 

Earlier this evening I was announced overall winner of a photography competition here in East London, South Africa, for this photo below:

Zooty is on the left in the photo and Basti is on the right.

I would like to sincerely thank Tourism Buffalo City (TBC), Vincent Park Shopping Centre, and Pollocks Pro Photo for organizing this East London photo competition, and the wonderful prizes for the 13 final images out of nearly 200 entries. The drinks and eats at the prize giving at Avanti at Vincent Park Centre were refreshing, creative, and very tasty! Well done, and thank you Avanti.

This photography competition was last held 5 or 6 years ago, and, then too, I did well to win a weekend for two at Katberg Inn, also with a photo of my two sons Basti and Zooty – playing in a rockpool at Sunrise on Sea early in the morning, on a misty hazy day. I thank my boys for being wonderful models and helping me win again! I took them with to Katberg to thank them, last time.

This time I won two lovely beach towels embroidered with the Tourism Buffalo City theme for this competition of “Life in Buffalo City….it’s always a pleasure”, a 12 meg Olympus digital camera, and a R1000 Vincent Park Shopping Voucher. Thank you so much to everyone for the wonderful prizes – and of course I’ll get my boys something with part of that voucher!

I almost didn’t get my winning entry entered in time, as didn’t have the money for the entries (R25 each). I was silly to enter 6 photos early in the competition, keeping what I thought were my better ones (another 5) for entry later – then realised I just didn’t have the money to enter them in time. Tony and I were waiting for some payments from web design clients to clear, and it was the day before the last day for entries! 9am on the last day (Wednesday the 7th of October), a payment came through and I entered my last few photos, including the one that came first!

On Friday Colleen of Tourism Buffalo City telephoned me to say I’d made the top 13 and to inform me of the date, time, and venue of the prize giving. I couldn’t take my boys to their karate lesson because the time clashed with that of the prize giving, but even though they’re going for their junior brown belts next, I didn’t want to miss the prize giving and they stayed home with their grandparents.

This photo above, also entered into the photography competition, was taken on the same day as the one that placed first.

I think all of the 13 finalists deserve to be congratulated on their fine efforts, as well as those who didn’t make the top 13 – I saw some awesome photographs displayed in Vincent Park Centre prior to the selection of the final 13.

At the prize giving, I was a little confused when first, second and third places went by for the family category as I thought that’s where the photo of my sons was, then the nature and adventure category went by too, and I couldn’t even think of what the other two categories were (culture and heritage, and business and industry), but didn’t think my photo belonged in whatever they were, and my heart began to pound – I felt almost ill and could feel my heart beating in my chest! They’d either forgotten me, or I was going to win!

Well, they didn’t forget me. Thank you!

Most of the photographs I take lately are for accommodation establishments in the East London area, for their websites Tony and I design, and my 5meg kodak digital camera has served me well, but now I’m going to enjoy learning how my new 12 meg Olympus camera works and put it to good use!

13 finalists on the 13th of October – what a lucky day!

For more of the types of East London photographs I have taken please also see East London photographs and attractions

and you can link to other photos of mine too, from this page

© Teresa Schultz