2010 North Georgia Shootout Report

Five members of the West Central Georgia Shutterbugs participated in the 2010 North Georgia Shootout, held on Saturday, October 23rd, at Berry College in Rome, GA. Since the five Shutterbugs (Bonny Shockley, Dianne Kelly, Francis Hauke, Johnnie Ann Gaskill and Linda Godwin) are also members of Georgia Nature Photographers Association (GNPA), they opted to participate on the GNPA team, along with 16 other GNPA members. The weather cooperated and they all had a beautiful day for photographing on the very picturesque 30,000-acre campus. Eleven other photography clubs participated in the shootout.

Before 8 a.m. that morning, five random topics were chosen: Up Close (Nature); Geometry (Square & Rectangles); Still Water; Man Made (What's the Point?) and Silhouettes. Once the topics were announced, each of the 12 photography clubs divided its participants into teams and gave each of them one topic to photograph. Then the 250+ photographers grabbed their cameras and other equipment and headed off in search of images that would fit their assignment. In less than six hours, they had to take their photographs, select their 10 personal best images, meet with other members of their team to choose the 10 images the team would submit to the judges, edit those images, copy them to a flash drive, and deliver it to the judges no later than the 2 p.m. deadline. That was lots of pressure, but lots of fun, too!

Each club could enter 50 images (10 per topic) in the final competition. Out of the 600 images submitted for final judging, five GNPA images placed in the Top 10. Three of those five were taken by Shutterbugs: Linda Godwin (4th Place in Up Close Nature), Bonny Shockley (4th Place in Silhouettes), and Johnnie Gaskill (6th Place in Man-Made; What's the Point?).

Congratulations!! Although, as a club, GNPA didn't bring home any medals or win First, Second or Third Place, some members walked away with great door prizes. They are looking forward to the 2011 shootout and will, in the meantime, encourage other photographers to participate.

Photos by Johnnie Ann Gaskill