WOOT!! Gonna Have a Photo Featured in the Local Paper!

[sm4him]

Our local daily paper has a special weekly feature called "Reader's Eye," which features a photo taken by a reader. Photos are selected from an online gallery; anyone can upload pictures to the gallery, but they have to be approved before they show up and then the newspaper feature editor chooses the photo for Reader's Eye. My sister has been featured twice, but I'd never even bothered to upload anything to the gallery for consideration. Normally, it takes weeks--sometimes months--for get a photo selected for the feature. One of my sister's photos had been up on the site for about six months before she was contacted about using it. I've seen others also that appeared online months before being selected as a Reader's Eye choice.

So, anyway, today at lunchtime, I was doing a little photo organization, and on a whim, decided to upload a few pictures to the newspaper gallery. I picked a few that my sister and others had told me I should submit and uploaded them.

Less than two hours later, the Feature Editor emailed me, asking if they could print one of them!!

No, there's no money involved--but there IS credit given, and generally a short paragraph telling how the "story" of the photo (if there IS a story), and then giving information on the photographer, so I can include links to my online photo sites, etc. And at this point, that's plenty enough for me!

The photo is one I took at a nearby wildlife refuge called Seven Islands. I never even posted it here, because it's not "up to par" with what the REAL bird photographers here produce--I was just excited because I'd never even SEEN a bald eagle in the wild before, never mind taken pictures of one.

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

Let me be the first to congratulate you.

Congratulations Sharon! You're a published photographer!

 

[Derrel]

Congratulations Sharon!!! Awesome! Great lighting on the eagle's head makes it really stand out.

 

[PixelRabbit]

Yay! Congrats Sharon!

 

[spacefuzz]

congrats!

 

[Brandon Hill]

congrats! it's like hearing your song on the radio.

 

[ronlane]

Congrats Sharon. :smileys::smileys::salute:

 

[bunny99123]

Congratulations!!!!!!!!!!

 

[dbvirago]

Congratulations. Guess I need to get up to East Tennessee.

 

[snowbear]

Congratulations, and a beautiful shot.

 

[JackandSally]

Congrats!!!!!!!!!! :thumbup:

 

[jwbryson1]

Very nicely done. Good job!

 

[John27]

Congratulations! Well deserved as well, beautiful shot!

 

[binga63]

Congrats......................

 

[sm4him]

Thanks, everyone!!

Let me be the first to congratulate you.

Congratulations Sharon! You're a published photographer!

An *award-winning* published photographer, at that. I won three ribbons at the TN Valley Fair--and that was when I just had a point-and-shoot. I'm sure I'd win "Best of Fair" now...

Congratulations Sharon!!! Awesome! Great lighting on the eagle's head makes it really stand out.

Thanks, Derrel; I planned it for just when the lighting hit the eagle's head like that. :lmao:

Congratulations. Guess I need to get up to East Tennessee.

Absolutely. There are PLENTY of reasons to come to East TN for photography! And actually, while this is the first time I've seen, and photographed, a eagle in the wild, there have been numerous sightings of them in the area the last couple of years. There is supposedly a pair of them that hang out about five miles down the road from me. I'm planning to spend a few of my days off this month seeing if I can track them down.