hey look, the hagia sofia

Did you go abroad during the 2009-10 academic year and take amazing photographs of your friends expanding their worldviews against the beautiful backdrop of a foreign skyline? Do your photos capture within a single frame what it means to be an American student studying abroad? Did you drink 2 bottles of red wine and then spend the night smashing your finger against the capture button on your digital camera trying to get one passable shot of the Hagia Sofia? Do you want to show the world how good you are at pointing and shooting? Presenting the Off-Campus Study and Exchange Photo Contest.

The OCSE office is accepting submissions to its photo contest until Nov. 1st so you should probably go here and figure out how to submit. The first place winner of each category will be awarded a $100 prize and the photo selected for the Best of Show will be awarded a $200 prize.

The OCSE website lists “representation of the study abroad experience, sensitivity toward the host culture and technical merit” as their selection criteria but I doubt I’m bursting any bubbles with the prediction that even a perfectly framed and focused picture of you wrapped in the Danish flag, chugging peppermint schnapps, smoking 4 cigarettes at once and still maintaining a look of complete homesickness and utter disdain for the people around you  isn’t going to win any awards—despite its pretty accurate representation of the study abroad experience (mine anyway). Maybe stick to something a bit more lighthearted, like scones on the table of an outdoor cafe or baguettes sticking out of grocery bags or something like that.

Good luck photogs.

Gather ’round folks, the results for the CTM photo contest are in. After several hundred rolls of film, and a record total of 329 entries (thanks to the internet “upload”), four photos were chosen to represent this college in all its photo glory (I suppose). If you can remember, there were four categories from which a different picture was chosen. Here are the respective winners:

Best in Show: Lucy Senesac ‘09’s “Patriotic Surfaces”
Skidmore Life: David Mishler ’09’s “Frank 1”
Anything Goes: Jon Dorn ’09’s “Schuylerville Sunrise—mid-Drive to a Skidmore News cover photo shoot”
Kid’s People’s Choice Award: Chris Weigl ’11’s “Ethereal”

Skidmore Unofficial would like to congratulate all of the winners. Your college just paid your cover charge to MARE.

VOTE YO!!!

Remember how happy everyone got when they voted a couple of weeks ago: all that champagne and happiness? Hopefully you’ll be able to pick up right where you left off by voting for the “people’s choice” winner of the CTM photo contest. There are tons of submissions and the winner of the contest gets 200 bones so head over to the website and cast your ballot. No word yet as to the availability of the obviously well deserved “I Voted” stickers, but we’ll keep our eyes peeled.

Vote Or Die

The winner, as selected by judges, will receive a hefty $200. A photo will also be chosen by us, the people, and the winner of that (People’s Choice) category will also receive $200. That’s not all, though; two more categories, “Student Life” and “Anything Goes,” will provide each of their winners with $150. Although this may seem like more money than you’ve made all semester in DHall, I would wait to consider quitting school to pursue a career in photography.

Submissions can be made on the photo contest’s webpage, and are really, really easy.