My entries for the 2024 New York State Fair Photography Competition are …

And now comes the big kahuna of Competition Season. The New York State Fair’s Photography Competition. I’ve participated in this show for 15 years, and my success / failure rate has run the gamut from six entries accepted with five ribbons (and two first place silks), to a stretch of several years where NOTHING made the walls of the Art Center. Yeah, those were the “Syracurse’ years. Good times. 😦

But this is a new year, and I feel confident about my six entries this season. Now there’s a slight adjustment for this year’s competition – although I am allowed six entries, I cannot place more than two entries in any specific category. In other words, I can’t flood the show with six “Taken at the NYS Fair” captures. Nuh-uh.

So here’s where I stand on this project. My six for Syracuse, 2024. And they are…

SKYWATCHERS

I’ve had success with the “Photos Taken at the NYS Fair” category, as my 2021 photo The Snowflake Ride claimed a blue silk in that discipline. This may also be the second-ever gondola photo that could be accepted in Syracuse; my 2019 photo Romance on Gondola 23 claimed an Honorable Mention, so there’s that.

17 JEWEL MOVEMENT

This is the first of my two entries in the “Color Traditional” category. My macro shot of the interior guts of a Longines lady’s wristwatch.

My second color entry is …

Be pREPAIRED

It was either this image, or one of my Civil War token macro shots … but in the end, I figured a Boy Scout Eagle badge tailoring would tell more of a story than a 160-year-old coin that would make some 8-year-old ask their parent, “Mommy, that photo says to shoot him on the spoot. What’s a spoot, mommy? Do I have a spoot?”

HOW GOD SEES AN ECLIPSE

Yes, you KNOW this was going in. I’ve got it tailored as one of my “non-traditional” photos, which allows for collage, alternate film processing techniques, all of that. I’ve had some success in that field before – both The AGFA Bridge Over Ansco Lake and Five Tickets to Ride Day and Night received second-place silks in this category in the past.

THE SACANDAGA RIVER CROSSING

Yeah. Just … yeah. This is my first-ever digital infrared photo to garner submission interest. It’s also my second entry in the “non-traditional” photo category.

And finally …

Le Pont PERCY Bridge

Can a Canadian covered bridge with a ton of HDR and leading lines make the walls this year? I sure hope so.

All right … now for the spec-sies.

• My Nikon equipment is responsible for FIVE out of the six images here; only Skywatchers, shot with my Google Pixel 6 Pro camera, is a non-Nikon submission this year.
• Of my five Nikon shots, four came from my Nikon Df camera, while the fifth one came from my infrared-modified Nikon Df camera.
• Four of the six images were photographed in New York State; Be pRepaired and 17 Jewel Movement were shot in my Albany County apartment; The Sacandaga River Crossing was captured in Saratoga County; and Skywatchers was shot in Onondaga County. Of the two that weren’t shot in New York, How God Sees an Eclipse was taken with my feet on the ground at Orleans County, Vermont; while Le Pont PERCY Bridge was captured in Quebec, in the region of Montérégie.
• Two of my photos (Be pRepaired and 17 Jewel Movement) were captured with my Nikkor Medical 120mm f/4 macro lens; while two others (Le Pont PERCY Bridge and The Sacandaga River Crossing) had my Vivitar 19mm f/3.8 super-ultra-wide lens on the chassis. How God Sees an Eclipse came from my Matusov 1100mm mirror lens with a Thousand Oaks solar filter through most of the capture.
• Skywatchers has a chance to earn my third-ever silk in the “Shot at the NYS Fair” category, behind a first-place blue for The Snowflake Ride, and an Honorable Mention for Romance on Gondola 23.
• Le Pont PERCY Bridge could be my first-ever covered bridge shot to make the walls, as well as my first-ever shot that was photographed in Canada.
• How God Sees an Eclipse could be my second-ever successful astrophotography shot to get on the walls of the Art Center, following 2022’s The View From Screven County lunar eclipse photo.
• 17 Jewel Movement could be my third-ever macro wall piece, after 2022’s High and Tight and 2021’s After The Rain.
• Be pRepaired could be my first-ever “still life” photo to get accepted.
• The Sacandaga River Crossing could be my second-ever ribbon with an infrared composition, after 2022’s We Serve Wayward Strangers; it could also be the second consecutive picture to feature the Saratoga, Corinth & Hudson Railroad on the walls.

In all honesty … I’d love to see all six make the walls. But I know that’s not possible.

I am, however, hoping for a few entries to receive their glory.

But I won’t know until later next month.

So let’s go from there, shall we?