Snow Flowers.

The 2013 "Win a Free Print for the Holidays" free print giveaway ended earlier today and I threw the entries into a number randomizer over at randomizer.org (http://www.random.org) because my dog wasn't about to pick the winners outside today- he was like "yeah... no." The Winners Are..... skip to the end to see or just read through my drivel and get there when the bus stops:

Winter is on! Winter is on us here in Maine in a big way, in a way that is something like: "remember me- I'm Winter, and I'm gonna do it like we used to do back in the 70's!" And we, all us Maine'rs are like "oh yeah, we do that, no problem"- and then when we are by ourselves we look around and say- 'jeezum bub maybe today's a good day to work in the shop/studio, throw another log on the fire, turn on the weather channel and grow the beard a little longer, cause this just aint fit!' (trust me I never use the colloquialism 'aint', just did here for local color).

Winter is a special time though to people of the snow- you learn to make the most of the daylight when it's there, do those organizing projects that you put off for the rest of the year, spend time with family, watch some good movies, maybe read a book. It's a great time to go deep and review your self, check your progress- make some refinements- but don't call them resolutions cause you know what happens then! And I always try to challenge myself as a photographer sometime in the winter months to come up with something of a change in direction like. The Snow Flowers shot above is a kind of minimal style of image that I began playing with last snowy winter using my 100mm 2.8. Nothing new in the world of photography but not my usual bag of long exposure black and white seascape- which to me is like an invigorating fresh smear of peppermint chapstick on my cracked lips of 'the same old same old thing' as far as picture making goes. 

Long story short- winter white makes me go ahh and see photos differently! Whatever. Now on to the Winners!

To recap- this was not some lame attempt at grabbing emails or anything, though to be completely honest: I don't really believe in pure altruism, and I guess the worst thing I did here was try to get my name out there a little more so that it may help to help me keep doing what I want to do. But that's not that bad of a thing when you consider the other bad things that you could consider- but let's not go there. I am honestly hoping to make a least some people happy here who may like their free print- or at least like the idea that they are winners again, cause you've all been winners before but it's always nice to win again. So, in the end- you'll do what you want with your booty- I kind of figured it would be a nice chance for the winner to give a gift using my free print as that gift to someone who you didn't quite know what to give or have the funds to do it with, but do with your spoils what you will, you winners of highest caliber! Ideally you'll be just a little happier that you were indeed proven to be lucky and win and go out into the world and give just a little bit of that back somehow and I'll be wicked psyched when it eventually comes back to me or the people in my life! Woot! See, then everybody wins! 

Winner #1 (local-in-person-hand-off-style-delivery) Amber Howard! Congrats Ambah! Hope you like your print!

Winner #2 (local-in-person-hand-off-style-delivery-#2) Jenn Booher! Supah Jenn! Hope you're psyched for your new print! Also, Jenn is a great photographer and artist as well, I swear!- check out her still life's and studies here: http://quercusdesign.blogspot.com

Winner #3 (actual premium U.S. Mail post office delivery service) Elizabeth Jordan! An ex-Mainer now living in Virginia, Elizabeth seems to almost wistfully love pictures of her old home state of Maine. Congratulations Elizabeth- happy holidays to you and your family from Nate and Soph and our dogs in Maine!

Snow Flowers

And there you have it! Sorry to those of you who didn't win now, but that just means that you'll win more later- you know how it goes. Maybe at least you had fun imagining that you would win for a little while until you forgot about it at least- which would be cool just in itself. And Jeremy- give me a shout and I'll check my backstock buddy! 

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, love your loved ones, don't forget to get yourself something nice as well!, Eat and then repeat, and have a great day, Nate from Maine, Usa!