By: Chuck Miller
Photography

My entries for the 2024 Altamont Fair Fine Arts Competition are …

It’s Tuesday morning. Judging at the Altamont Fair Fine Arts Competition is complete. And once I know that the judging is finished, I can at least post the four entries I’ve submitted.

Why do I wait until now? Why don’t I just post the images after I drop them off?

Simple. I do not want my blog to influence any judging before judging is complete. It’s not fair to the other competitors. Everybody should be judged in a competition based on their work, not on their name or on their influence.

And I saw that back in my Times Union blogging days.

See, at one time there was a community blogger who tried to enter a competition where their dog could be featured as a “puppy of the week” or something along those lines. And she blogged several times to ask her readers to, essentially, do the Albany political machine vote – vote early and vote often. But when her dog didn’t receive enough votes to warrant “puppy of the week” recognition, she had a hissy fit in her blog about it.

Yeah, I don’t want that. That’s not how we do things around here.

So here’s what I do.

On Saturday, I drop off my four entries at the Altamont Fair’s Fine Arts building. I make sure they’re properly hung on the walls, then I take safety photos of each entry.

And I wait until after Monday, when I know all the entries have been judged, and I post my photos on Tuesday.

And here they are. These are my four entries for the 2024 Altamont Fair.

ONE ECLIPSE OVER TEXAS

There’s my cloud-tinted annular eclipse from San Antonio. I know I should have entered it in other competitions, but … well … I saved it for this one.

WHEN THE SECOND FEATURE STARTS

This is only being shown ONCE. I already have a buyer for it, so once this collage of repainted drive-in speakers gets its love at the Altamont Fair, the artwork (along with any ribbons it might earn) will go to its new forever home. 

HOW GOD SEES AN ECLIPSE

The Altamont Fair gets this image in a special format – the good people at ArtBeat Studios in Anaheim printed this on an acrylic substrate.

And finally … just for winks and nods.

SHOOT HIM ON THE SPOOT

Even when I dropped this image off for acceptance, the receivers thought the print was called “Shoot Him on the Spot.” And it took them a couple of glances to confirm that, yes, that’s a 160-year-old typo. And if you look in the upper right corner, you can see the original penny-sized copperhead storefront token that was used to capture this detailed image.

These are my four images for Altamont 2024. I’m going to drive over tonight to see how they did. So if you get there before I do, and you see how my items did … shhh. Don’t spoil it for me. It’s kind of a 15-year-long tradition for me to find out when I get there.

It’s a Chuck thing.

Just go with it. 😀