My 2023 photo entries for the Iowa State Fair are …

I have to tell you a secret.

I almost missed the deadline for the Iowa State Fair Photography Salon’s entries.

See, I thought the entries were to be delivered to the Fairgrounds by June 17th. And I prepared for that date, hoping to get my last two photos done in time for shipping.

Well, guess what.

That deadline is for people who are hand-delivering their entries to the Fairgrounds. Shipping entries have to arrive in Des Moines by June 9.

And guess when I found this out?

June 8.

Oh shit.

Two of my hammer pieces weren’t even out of the print shop yet.

Okay. I gotta scramble.

I called McGreevy Pro Lab (my pro lab of choice) and asked – begged – groveled on bended knees – to see if the prints that I had originally requested for Friday could be done by Thursday.

“We’ll try. No guarantees, but we’ll try.”

Okay. Now I gotta call Des Moines and beg for an extension. I tried everything. I blamed the smoke from the Canadian wildfires, I blamed my mis-reading the deadlines, I asked if I could send the entries on Friday and have them arrive in the fairgrounds in time for judging.

No dice, they told me. If the entries don’t get there by Friday, they don’t get judged.

Nuts.

I mean, I’ve got four entries, and I can throw them in a FedEx box and pray for the best. But I really want those two hammer pieces in the competition.

At 4:00, I received an email. It was from McGreevy Pro Lab. The prints were done. They just sent an invoice. I paid the invoice, ran down to their Broadway locale and picked up the entries. Yeah, they looked swank. As always.

Okay. Those two hammer pieces plus two other pieces – into the shipping box. Now to make like a donkey carrying service, and haul ass to the FedEx drop-off locale.

Handed my package to the FedEx clerk. “Do you want it tomorrow by 10:30 a.m., or tomorrow by 4:00 p.m.?”

“Make it 10:30 a.m.,” I said, handing the clerk my credit card.

One swipe later – the four prints were on their way to Iowa.

Now it’s all up to FedEx.

Everything should be fine. I don’t need to worry. FedEx is reliable. It’s not like my package needed to go through the TSA and all that.

And sure enough … I checked the online tracking, and the pictures arrived in Des Moines bright and early.

And …

Wait … look at the 9:10 am entry. “Shipment Refused by Recipient.”

Say what?!?!?

No, no, that’s not right. I spent a fortune getting these prints done, and getting them shipped at the last minute – they made it to the location – and they were REFUSED???

Oh, crap. This means my photos won’t get judged. I spent all year working on artworks FOR NOTHING.

And why? Why were they refused? I had the right label on them. I double-checked with FedEx to make sure everything was correct.

This in not good. Not good at all.

And now I’m having emotional flashbacks. Flashbacks to when I was in grade school and my classmates set up events to completely exclude me. You know the kind – 23 Valentines handed out in a class of 24. That kind of stuff.

And when I was in college, and some people at my college radio station had a personal animus against me, they set up a photo shoot for the yearbook without my participation, and put those photos in the yearbook so it looked as if I wasn’t ever a part of the station. That kind of stuff.

The kind where you can’t blame it on accidents or circumstance. It’s clear as crystal. Find a way to exclude Chuck Miller and make sure he knows damn well he’s not welcome.

Hello inferiority complex, my old friend …

On Monday, June 12, I called the Iowa State Fair Entries Department and asked if they knew what had happened.

“That’s strange,” the representative said to me. “Did you send it to our designated FedEx recipient address?”

“Yes, I did.”

“And you have the tracking number?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Let me find out what happened, and I’ll call you back.”

Okay.

And long-time readers of my blog know very well that when an organization says, “I’ll call you back,” they never do. I went through that with Spectrum a few weeks ago.

45 minutes later … a call. Iowa State Fair on the caller ID.

“Mr. Miller, we found out what happened.”

Okay …

“See, last week the Iowa State Fair hosted the World Pork Festival, and we had to close off certain areas of the Fairgrounds. The FedEx location was moved to a different area, but the FedEx person went to the wrong gate and … well … that’s what happened. However, we have the tracking number and we will make sure your package arrives on the Fairgrounds – and since you can prove by the postmark that you mailed it in time for judging, it will be judged.”

That’s a relief, for sure.

Then Tuesday arrived. I received a call from FedEx.

“Mr. Miller, we’ve been trying to deliver your package to the Iowa State Fair, but nobody’s accepting it. We will send the package back to you now.”

WHAT???

No, you can’t do that. If you send it back, then the photos don’t get accepted and I’ve spent all this time trying to make this happen.

“We’ll try one more time to deliver, but we can’t promise anything.”

That, folks, is FedEx. Where it absolutely, positively, has to be there maybe in four or five days if you’re lucky. Ugh.

Then, at around 5:30 p.m., I received one more phone call. It was from the State Fairgrounds. The director of entries actually drove to FedEx in Des Moines and picked up my package (along with five other packages for the Photo Salon that FedEx somehow didn’t deliver) and, to put a coda on this novella, all the prints are finally accepted for judging, which should take place next week.

Finally. My sincere thanks to the Iowa State Fair Entries Department for going the extra mile on this. And thanks to FedEx. I’ll make sure to NEVER use your services again. Ugh.

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And Competition Season begins today, with my first shipment of four artworks to various county-wide and state-wide competitions.

The Iowa State Fair allows a maximum of four entries, and are category-specific – i.e. you are limited to one entry per subject or discipline.

I’ve done reasonably well at Iowa, with my eclipse picture The View From Screven County claiming a blue silk last year; and my dewdrop-drenched dandelion After the Rain scoring a first prize in 2019.

This does not mean, however, that I can rest on my laurels. Those ribbons are from years past. If I want to achieve success with my photography … I have to stay current and inventive.

And with that, I’ve entered the following four images to the Iowa State Fair this year.

Christmas in Ho-Ho-Ho Scale

There is a “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” category, and after three COVID-enforced years of waiting for the Canadian Pacific Holiday Train to return to the rails, I finaly caught it in Saint-Constant, Quebec. In it goes.

Ran Out of Firewood

There’s a category for “Anything Goes,” to which this superimposed image of a Christmas tree sans tree will enter. I have a version of this photo as a lenticular print, where if you walk past the picture the tree will slowly disappear from branched tree to no tree to no lights at all. But that might be too esoteric for the Iowa State Fair, so this static picture will do instead.

Hudson River Sunrise

The Iowa State Fair’s “themed” category this year involves sunrises and sunsets. Well, I doubt that anyone else came up with a “sun trail” photo for this show. And if they did, then God bless them. This was one of my “hammer” photos, and I really, really, really wanted this image to compete at the Iowa State Fair.

Oh, and the other hammer photo?

It’s another sun shot.

#5, The Sunset Limited

See, there’s also a sub-category for sunrise and sunset photos – as a black and white construct. This was the shot I captured during one of the Saratoga, Corinth & Hudson Railway’s “Moonlight Cruises,” where the SC&H will travel down to Kings Station by twilight, and return with the full moon high in the sky. This is also my challenge of entering FIVE different SC&H images this year, rather than one SC&H photo that gets repurposed for all five events.

Now some of the images I wanted to enter will be allocated instead for Altamont or the NYS Fair or the Big E or Durham. So you could see Atomic Tulips or Bennington County, 15F in another locale. You don’t know. Then again, neither do I.

But all I want right now is for these four images to reach the judges’ eyes.

I’m not a fan of disqualifications for being late. Not now … not ever.