FIGURATIVE 5A - Kevin Bacher Want an upbeat story with a strange twist at the end? Here you go.

Art Show International, an online gallery based in Los Angeles, had a competition recently on the theme "Figurative." Right up my alley, right? So I submitted two photos. I just heard back a few days ago -- one of my photos won a "Talent Award" and the other an Honorable Mention!

To put this in some context, the gallery offers a single "First Place Award," two "Runner-up Awards," three "Merit Awards," and 100 Talent Awards. That makes winning a Talent Award a bit less novel, but it does come with a $25 prize, so that's something, and the next two levels, Honorable Mention and Finalist, have 366 and 309 winners respectively. So even if every photo submitted was slotted into one of those categories, I still have a photo in the top 14%, and a check for $25. Which makes up for the $20 entry fee, plus a cup of coffee and bragging rights.

Here are the two photos that won: "Jacob's Angel" (Vex Voir, Interlaken Park, June 2017) with the Talent Award, and "Skinny Dipper" (Dolly Mattel, Crystal Lake, September 2021) with the Honorable Mention.

Jacob's Angel (Talent Award) Skinny Dipper (Honorable Mention)

Now the twist. As I was recording these results, I discovered that I actually entered this same competition last year, under the same theme. Which wouldn't be unusual, except that one of the photos I entered, which earned an Honorable Mention, was Jacob's Angel. Of all the photos in my collection, I submitted the same image! And it was accepted two years in a row. Oops. Totally inadvertent. But it is nice to know that their judgment of its quality isn't a fluke, but rather, something replicable. Makes it feel more scientific!