Winners of Just Out’s annual Pride photo contest

Sorry for the delay folks. I know these winners were announced over 2 weeks ago but I’ve been simultaneously recovering from and engaging in Pride both here and in Cali. But this year’s winners of the Just Out Pride Amateur Photo Contest were pretty amazing.

As far as I can tell there isn’t one Grand Prize winner this year but I’d like to highlight a couple of my favorite category winners. This year’s “Getting Graphic” winner was “Bliss” by Atom Ion, pictured to the right. This is what he had to say about it:

‘Twas a dreary spring day and I was trying to get an amazing shot of Torin. It wasn’t happening. …Out of nowhere the sun shot through the bathroom window and showered him with pearlescent light. All I had to do was be there to capture the moment. …Pure magical bliss!

I also loved the “Whatever” category winner “Drummer Boy” by E. Edwin Ennor.

My image “Drummer Boy” is in many ways similar to others I have taken over the years. Since college I have had a fascination with portraits with a difference. I love to make profile portraits of people because there is never any shyness about looking at the camera. Likewise, I have always made portraits of people from behind. The tension created by what is not seen hopefully compels the viewer to look deeper into the image. If someone comes up at Pride and asks to take your picture from behind, just say “sure.” It will probably be me.

Even the ones that didn’t make the final category cut look pretty amazing, certainly in comparison to some I judged last year (sorry, there’s amateur and then there’s amateur, jus’ sayin’). You can catch a few of these gems over in the staff picks section.

I gotta go with advertising director Larry Lewis, who chose “Faerie Sunset” by Atom Ion, saying:

This photo stirs up memories of one of my favorite films, Were The World Mine. This modern musical take on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is filled with beautiful voices and amazing imagery. One of my favorite lines from the film fits this photo perfectly: “We fairies / that do run / from the presence of the sun / we follow darkness like a dream.” Perhaps he isn’t a fairy at all, but Puck, offering the sun a piece of his moon?

Here’s a few of my favs below: