Take a Shot at City Hall Contest

Our friends over at The Foothill Cities Blog are running a photo contest that should prove to be fun. Here's the scoop:

We on the FC Blog spend a lot of time berating local city councilmembers. But while gadflying around local city halls, we couldn’t help but notice that some of them are actually good-looking buildings (see the picture of Pasadena City Hall above). So, we figured, why not hold a contest to see who can take the best picture of one of these hallowed halls? We couldn’t think of any reason not to so we’re announcing the “Take a Shot at City Hall” Photo Contest. Better yet, thanks to Photolimn, Life Preserver: Digital Archiving and Aaron Proctor, we have some great prizes for the winners, and thanks to me we’ve even got a prize for the losers. Here are the rules:

• You can submit up to three pictures of a city hall. We will only consider your first three submissions, so don’t bother spamming.
• You can submit your pictures one of two ways: 1) (strongly recommended) by adding them to our Flickr pool (with the tag “cityhallcontest”) or emailing us your submission to centinel[at]thefcblog.com (if you really hate Flickr).
• The top ten pictures will be put to a public vote, and the top three vote-getters will win prizes.
• The final five pictures will be selected by a panel of judges including myself, Publius, Zajac, Petrea, Frazgo, Ben and Proctor (and possibly a celebrity judge!)
• Your picture can be of any city hall or city hall-related building in the world (like this knockoff of Pasadena City Hall in Japan). Bonus points will be given to photos that have an FC or Southern California connection, but don’t hesitate to send them in from elsewhere.
• All submissions must be added to the pool or emailed by Friday, August 1st at 5:00PM. Top ten will be chosen and winners selected after voting is complete.
• Authors, Contributors, and contest judges to the FC Blog are, of course, not eligible to win any of the prizes.

And here are the prizes:

• First Place: one free photo to painting conversion (16 x 20), courtesy of Photolimn ($200 value)
• Second Place: One free photo album film to digital conversion, courtesy of Life Preserver: Digital Archiving ($100 value)
• Third Place: 25% off a photo-painting conversion (any size), courtesy of Photolimn (value depends on size of painting)
• And the Last Place prize, for worst picture of a city hall, will get a “Mistakes Will Be Made” T-Shirt, courtesy of Aaron Proctor. ($19 value)

Finally, anyone who participates in this contest (that is, sends in a photo at all) will automatically receive 10% off any Photolimn product or order (and that does include anyone who writes for us or is a judge. Sweet!)

A word of clarification on what counts as a “photo of city hall.” It can be anything you want, but there has to be at least a piece of a city hall in the picture. Be creative and knock our socks off. If you’ve already put you awesome picture in our Flickr group (we do have over 2,500 pictures there and counting), then just add the tag “cityhallcontest” and you’re entered!

Any questions or concerns, please email centinel [at] thefcblog.com. Now, get shooting!

CLARIFICATION:

The photo must include a city hall in some capacity. If the shot is of a broader civic center, that’s fine, but there’s got to be a city hall connection.