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Shutterbugs

From the planks of a pier that at sunset appear like keys on a piano to the haunting image of mannequin's face in a Vienna store window, the images captured by the XX shutterbugs honored in this year's twelfth annual photo contest are intriguing reflections of everyday life.

Winners, few of which are professional photographers, make the art of photography an integral part of their lives. They seek inspiration in architecture, people, urban landscapes and nature - looking for the rare moment when, through the lens of a camera, something terrific occurs.

"The eye and the camera see different," one winner noted.

This year's four judges (see bios page X) chose from 252 entries by 190 contestants. The winning photos will be exhibited at the Palo Alto Art Center, 1313 Newell Road at Embarcadero, from May 27 to June 11. The winners will receive prizes from local businesses. First-place winners will receive $250 in cash and $100 gift certificates from University Art Center. Second-place winners will receive $150 in cash and a $100 gift voucher from UCSC Extension Art + Design Department. Third-place winners get $100 in cash and a $100 gift certificate from PhotoTime. Youth winners will receive a $70 gift certificate from University Art Center for first place and $30 gift certificate for University Art Center for second place.

Youth 16 and Under

"It was either going to be the circle or this one," he said of his original idea to shoot rectangles. But he had another thought.

"I had taken a bunch of photographs of friend's eyes and it was going to be the same thing but with eyes instead of circles, but I realized that it wouldn't be as interesting."

Reis finally settled on circles, but snuck one eye into the graphic montage.

"It was one of the better looking eyes of one of my friends," Reis said.

Reis, a Menlo Park resident and sophomore at Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose, is the photography editor of both the school newspaper and yearbook. School responsibilities often require him to photograph sporting events, but his real passion lies in architectural photography. "I like doing things that are less obvious and a little different from what people normally take," Reis said.

Household circular items were shrunk to uniform size and situated beside each other in his graphic tableau. What began as a collection of more than 40 photographs was narrowed to 25 that he shot with a digital camera and sized in Photoshop.

"I also do a lot of things with repetition in them. At harbors. Repetitions that look good - they usually take an eye to find because they are not as obvious as animals."

Reis hopes to develop his camera skills even more. "I'd like to do photography for a job. Advertising or work for a magazine. Do a little photojournalism, maybe. National Geographic type stuff." -- Grace Rauh
Kevin Chung 'Projectory Reflections' Second place

During the late afternoon, as the sun slowly sank for the night, Kevin Chung and his family walked through the Mission Basilica San Diego de Alcala grounds.

"I just noticed that the sun kind of peeked through the hole in the bells," Chung said.

When the light reached the exact point to project the shadow of the bell against the white mission wall, Chung shot his winning photograph.

"I had to kind of scrunch at the corner to take the picture," Chung said.

Chung, an eighth-grader at Jane Lathrop Stanford Middle School, began taking photos under the guidance of his father, who previously worked as a newspaper photographer. After returning from their family vacation, Chung's father saw his son's photograph and decided to put it in the photo competition, along with his own submission.

And what of dad's reaction to his son's award?

"He was fairly surprised. He thought he would win the photo contest," Chung said.

Chung has played the clarinet in the JLS band for the past three years and enjoys tennis for fun. Above all, he loves shooting photographs when traveling.

"All the wildlife shots and scenery really amaze me." -- Grace Rauh
Cleo Leung 'Dichotomy' Honorable mention

When Cleo Leung's English project required her to analyze an Emily Dickinson poem and express its meaning through a different medium, the Menlo School junior chose photography.

"I picked a poem about the innocence of youth and how that changes," Leung said.

Leung juxtaposed photographs of her young cousin with images of her father looking tired.

"I had that one really, really good image of my cousin," Leung said. She cut out her cousin, inverted the image's colors on her computer and played around with it for fun.

"It's one of my lesser known hobbies. I really enjoy taking photographs and playing with them on my computer. But it's something I do for myself and I haven't had much formal training in," Leung said. -- Grace Rauh

Peninsula Images

"My early cameras were hand-me-downs from my older brother. I built a small darkroom in our basement," he recalled.

Naiman had darkrooms in most of his homes until he switched to digital a few years ago. In high school he had a part-time job assisting a commercial photographer at weddings and in his dark room, and was given his first new camera as a graduation gift.

A retired pediatric hematologist, he often used his photography expertise to photograph patients or even to take photos of blood cells under the microscope for use in teaching and publication. Not long before he retired, he was introduced to the concept of artistic expression in photography through the Palo Alto Camera Club.

"Seeing and discussing the work of talented individuals, and visiting art and photography exhibits at museums and galleries in the Bay Area has helped me to better see subjects that might make interesting photographs."

After many trips to Death Valley, he has taken a particular interest in photographing the California desert.

"A Touch of Class" was taken at last year's Palo Alto Councours D'Elegance at Stanford. Naiman was struck by an ornamental white hat on a car.

"Its fine texture, color and shape enclosed by the chrome window trim fit in beautifully with the shades of red -- to me capituring the essence of the show," he said. See also his biography for having won first place in the Views Beyond the Peninsula category. -- Miriam Boon
Steve Goldband 'Eroded Pier, Low Tide' Second place

When Steve Goldband couldn't get into the sold-out crab festival at Fort Mason in San Francisco, not all was lost. An exposed pier caught his attention and out came his camera.

"It was near sundown and the tide was very, very low and the light on this pier was extraordinary and it made the pier almost glow."

The worn planks struck Goldband as a "beautiful scene, really." And back in the digital darkroom he dodged and burned -- lightened and darkened specific areas in the photograph.

"It kind of looks like a piano keyboard," Goldband said of the weathered planks.

"The things that I look at are these architectural forms and it's the light that makes a particular one interesting for a picture."
Steven Shpall 'The One That Got Away' Third place

The antique pocket watch represented in photographer Steven Shpall's award-winning picture, "The One That Got Away," was bequeathed to him by his great uncle Denny. But the identity of the woman whose face graces the interior lid of the age-old watch remains a mystery.

"We initially thought it was a lost love," Shpall said. "But we now believe the woman may have been Denny's grandmother."

Shpall found the image of the woman "striking" and decided to snap a keepsake photo. A picture of a picture, the outcome of which earned Shpall third place in the Peninsula Images category this year. In addition, it garnered Shpall his third prize this year (he also won second place in the Peninsula People category and an honorable mention in the Manipulated Images category).

The 50-year-old Palo Alto resident was raised in Denver, Colo. He and his wife, Kay, moved to Palo Alto 20 years ago. Shpall studied photography during high school, but only recently decided to revisit his hobby. A practicing dermatologist in Mountain View, Kay said the important visual aspect of his profession benefits his photographic talents.

Shpall, who has two children -- a 16-year-old boy, Zeke, and a 21-year-old girl, Alexa -- plans to continue photography as long as he is able. Will he pick up a few more prizes at next year's photo contest? Only time will tell. -- Tyler Hanley
Rick Stultz 'Coastal Trees' Honorable mention

Rick Stultz credits a recent New York exhibition of photographer Andreas Gursky's work as his inspiration.

"That just blew my socks off," he said. "And it's what got me deeply interested in photography."

Now the semi-retired commercial real estate manager occupies much of his time studying books, going to art exhibitions and just looking at photographs.

Gursky, was well known for his urban subject matter and cityscapes. And though Stultz is fond of urban photography himself, lately he's been taking more photographs of nature.

"I don't want to limit myself," he said. "I'm at a point where I want to just develop my skills."

This is his second shot of the same group of trees somewhere north of Half Moon Bay. He first shot it in summer, but was unimpressed with the results.

"The eye and camera see different things," he said.

He came back again to shoot the trees in the winter.

"I think this print shows more contrast than it did in person. The darks are darker and the lights are lighter than what I saw when I was right there," he said. "But it was just as beautiful." -- Martin Nobida
Bruce Hodge 'Maple, Gazos Creek' Honorable mention

Although almost every shot Bruce Hodge takes is of something found in nature, he insists he doesn't want to be labeled a nature photographer.

"I'm really using the forms, shapes and colors I'm finding in nature to create interesting compositions," he said. "It's about using common objects to make something new."

He took this shot with a Bronica medium-format camera.

The simple leaf was lying on the ground at Gazos Creek, a place one of his friends had long raved about for offering great photo opportunities.

"You sort of get into a Zen-like receptive state," he said of how he knew the leaf was worthy of a shot. "You're open to things you're seeing, and you're receptive to compositions and forms you think are interesting."

But when it comes down to actually shooting, he said, almost all his photos are carefully planned.

"This one took me 10 or 15 minutes to compose," he said. -- Martin Nobida

Peninsula People

"I was shocked," he said. "I haven't been doing this for long."

A resident of Woodside, he only started taking photography seriously in 2001. Nonetheless, he managed to come away with a first place win in the Peninsula People category. He also had an honorable mention in last year's contest.

A wireless systems engineer for Texas Instruments by day, he spends most of his weekends shooting photographs in San Francisco, which he likes for its wide variety of people and architecture.

He counts the photographer Garry Winogrand as a major influence. Winogrand, a prolific photographer in the 1960s and 1970s, was well known for his street-photography images.

"I love capturing people in their own environment," Evans said, explaining his interest in street photography. "I want to capture pictures that tell a story."

He took this photo while at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He was upstairs setting up his Sony digital camera to take photos of architecture, he said.

"But as I was looking through a porthole, a woman walked by," he said. "And from where I stood, that looked like the more interesting shot."

Evans is also a wood worker. He makes frames, which he sometimes uses to display not only his own photographs, but the paintings that his wife does.

"Talk about a vertically integrated skill set," he said with a laugh.

He has no theory or hypothesis on why this particular photograph may have won.

"Photo contests are a real challenge," he said. "It's a gamble. You're never really sure that what's appealing to you is pleasing to other people." -- Martin Nobida
Steven Shpall 'Through the Looking Glass: a self-portrait' Second place

Glass blocks decorate a portion of photographer Steven Shpall's Palo Alto home. When a viewer peers through the translucent blocks, objects on the other side become warped and askew. Shpall took advantage of the unusual translation to photograph himself through the glass.

"I had noticed through the bricks you get an interesting distortion," Shpall said. "I thought it would make a good picture."

Shpall's photographic theory paid off, the resulting image, "Through the Looking Glass: a self-portrait," earned him second place in the Peninsula People category of this year's photo contest. Shpall also received a third-place prize in the Peninsula Images category for his piece entitled "The One That Got Away" and an honorable mention in the Manipulated Images category for the unusual "Zeke Pin."

He spent his youth in Denver, Colo., and studied photography in high school. Although he eventually went on to receive academic degrees in medicine, becoming a dermatologist, he never quite lost the lust for photography and elected to reacquaint himself with his long dormant hobby a year ago.

He and his wife, Kay, moved to Palo Alto in 1983, when their oldest child, Alexa, was only a year old. They also have a 16-year-old son, Zeke, whose facial expressions became the model for Shpall's "Zeke Pin" photograph.

Shpall admits that pursuing photography for financial gain has never appealed to him.

"Selling pictures gets to be a whole different level of activity," Shpall said. "I'm not really interested in getting into that. I'm just doing it for fun." -- Tyler Hanley
Jennifer Mutz 'Mom's Hat' Third place

Although the archetypal mother can think of no other more beautiful subject than her own child, in Jennifer Mutz's case, she couldn't have been more right. It was a beautiful summer day when her 3-year-old daughter was sitting in the sun in her mother's hat, innocently enjoying the summer heat. "When I looked at her wearing my hat, I saw a picture in front of me," said Mutz. In particular, she liked the way the light filtered through the hat onto her child's face.

Mutz, ironically, was in the midst of a basic photography class through the Palo Alto Arts Center. The picture was her first shot taken with a 35mm camera, and appeared on her first roll of black and white film. Mutz's interest in portrait photography, or social photography, was mostly motivated by the search for the story behind the photograph.

"The life, where you came from, and in social photography, what's the story the photographer is trying to tell about a particular social movement," she said.

Although Mutz was deeply interested in these photographs, she had never picked up a camera until that summer.

A graduate of Stanford, Mutz was involved in high-tech marketing until she stopped working to become a full-time mother. She has been living in Palo Alto for the last eight years. -- Miriam Boon
Bob Story 'Road Racing' Honorable mention

Bob Story, a 25-year resident of Los Altos Hills, has been indulging in photography for 34 years.

Originally, he studied photography and graphic arts in college, but he eventually reached the conclusion that he would prefer photography as a hobby rather than a profession. Since then he has enjoyed a long career at the Wall Street Journal in Palo Alto and only recently retired.

A first-place winner in other years, Story wanted to explore motion photography with this shot, which he took with the contest in mind. The photograph is of a women's bike race in Redwood City. The day before the race he scouted out the race course, seeking a place that would be appropriate for the photo - a dark spot "to create the blur."

A photo with enough blur to show movement, yet still not make the moving objects unrecognizable, is a real challenge - one he hoped to tackle with this photograph. -- Miriam Boon

Views Beyond the Peninsula

"A person can wonder if the mannequin is thinking about wearing that jacket, or, whatever a person wants to imagine, I guess," he said, referring to the jacket visible to the right in the photo.

Davis, who has been living in Atherton for 14 years, is an associate of the Center for Investigative Reporting in San Francisco, a 25-year-old non-profit. Although he has had occasion to use his photography skills on the job, Davis mostly considers himself a hobbyist.

That September vacation was his first experience with a digital camera, and he was impressed.

"I found my new digital camera was very easy to use and obtained quite sharp images even though it was mostly being handheld."

His decision to enter the Weekly's contest was not motivated by this photograph but rather by a series of up-close photos he had been taking of flowers.

"Almost everybody I showed them to thought they were really exceptional." While entering some of them in the contest, he discovered there was a category for photos taken outside of the Peninsula. -- Miriam Boon
J. Lawrence Naiman 'Seductive Carnivore' First place co-winner

J. Lawrence Naiman has been taking photographs most of his life, and this year he amazingly won first place in two separate categories - for "A Touch of Class" in the Peninsula Images section, and for "Seductive Carnivore" in the Views Beyond the Peninsula section. Both took advantage of a similar technique, highlighting the fact that "you can often bring out the beauty in a subject by moving in closer and choosing the right angle and lighting."

"Seductive Carnivore" depicts a plant (Heliamphora nutans) which he found at California Carnivores, a nursery near Sebastopol housing the world's largest collection of carnivorous plants. Naiman was seduced by the plant, moving his camera closer and closer.

"I was being mesmerized by its overlapping curvaceous leaves and soft colors."

It wasn't until afterward that he realized how sensuous the image truly was, "reminiscent of one of those photos by Richard Avedon of famous semi-nude women with arms covering their chest."

For more information about Naiman, see his biography in the Peninsula Images section. -- Miriam Boon
Raelyn Jacobson 'Unforeseen' Second place

Raelyn Jacobson had an unusual opportunity recently to combine two of her interests -- contests and photography.

When she was a child, she often played with her father's camera. Upon graduation from Castellana (CASTILLEJA?) High School, she was given a camera as a graduation present, which she had opportunity to use last year when she took her first photography class.

"I had a photo project where we had to do a 10 photo series," said Jacobson.

She chose her sister as the subject of her series, and quickly got carried away, taking more pictures than the assignment called for. Her winning photo, Unforeseen, was one of those extra pictures. It depicts her sister posing in her Pitzer College dorm room with a sheet wrapped around her head. The photograph was named Unforeseen because "it just fit the picture; it's just what you can't see of the picture and what they can't see of you and what's outside the frame. It's just everything."

The photo was one of two she entered; the other was digitally altered. Her growing portfolio has given her the opportunity to finally indulge her interest in the photography contests she could not enter in the past due to a lack of material. Jacobson is a sophomore at UCSD currently majoring in computing in the arts and psychology. --Miriam Boon
Randy Mont-Reynaud 'Hoop Dreams, Hispaniola' Third place

Last July, Randy Mont-Reynaud and her daughter, Marie-Jo, left Palo Alto's high-tech territory behind for Haiti's electricity-deprived hills. While walking through a courtyard of a boys' orphanage, Mont-Reynaud saw a boy staring at his basketball pump.

"He was wearing these baggy American pants and Nike shoes," Mont-Reynaud said. "These don't grow on trees in Haiti. If the ship stops coming, they're bare-footed."

While most American boys would shrug off a broken pump, this child remained focused on its uselessness. The boy's despair and disenfranchisement were the emotions Mont-Reynaud aimed to capture in a photo. Deprived of the necessary knowledge to make repairs, many Haitian youths are left back, creating an only-the-strong-survive society.

"The joy in your life is at the caprice or whim of somebody else," she said. "Anyone at a computer knows frustration of not getting a program to run. But you can call tech support. A situation I think we can relate to -- the hopelessness."

During her two-month visit, Mont-Reynaud lived with a native family, adapting to a native diet of cornmeal mush and beans as well as a no-plumbing environment. While walking or riding a mule through the terrain, she always carried her Minolta camera.

As administrative director of Stanford Law School's law and economics program, she doesn't have much time for picture-taking. Mont-Reynaud credits her two children for turning her on to photography. In fact, winning the Weekly's photo competition appears to be the new family tradition. Both Marie-Jo and son, Jordy, a Stanford junior, are previous winners.

With Marie-Jo researching a paper on Haiti's current government, a return to Haiti is planned for this summer. And Mont-Reynaud is looking forward to getting reacquainted with the lifestyle because "you can't really be a tourist to poverty." Terry Tang
Susan Neville 'China Past' Honorable mention

Besides knowing how to operate a camera, a photographer should know the art of discretion. At least that's what Susan Neville demonstrates in her up-close snapshot of an elderly Chinese woman's rough, but strong hands.

While visiting her son this past spring in China's Yunan Province, Neville discovered a pleasant hub at the center of a village called Lijiang. A village with the largest population of minorities, many senior citizens congregate over tea, song and musical instruments. Being very careful not to disrupt their gathering, Neville considered how to portray the woman whose colorful blue and white outfit first caught her eye. Most importantly, she wanted a photo that would provoke people's feelings.

"I usually look for some gesture that would communicate an emotion that you can kind of relate to," Neville said. "All over the world, it might be a different language, but people usually understand gestures."

Neville first got into photography 22 years ago, when the first of her four kids was born. While two of her children have entered the Weekly's photo competition, this marks Neville's second win.

A graduate of Stanford's Business School, she divides her time between her family and acting as a facilitator in an interpersonal dynamics course at her alma mater. Meanwhile, Neville still maintains a Web site that she and a friend created in 2000. Postcards2.com allows travelers to e-mail postcards from all over the world and the images on there include some of Neville's own pictures.

A recent digital camera convert, Neville finds the speed and light weight ideal. Aside from not having to tow film rolls around, she can use the view-finder to get different angles and perspectives.

"I had my camera down on my hip when I was taking this picture," she said. "I can interact with people and have my camera just be out of the way and still get some good pictures. I don't have to have it in front of my face the whole time." -- Terry Tang
Steven Hooper 'Night Shadows Revisited' Honorable mention

While most people buy a magazine or paperback to pass the time at an airport, entrepreneur Steven Hooper likes to take out the digital camera usually packed into his brief case.

On his way home via Santa Ana's John Wayne Airport, Hooper happened to glance down at a baggage claim from a pedestrian walkway. As he watched two travelers toting their luggage in dark shadows, Hooper was instantly reminded of another artist whose turn-of-the-century paintings he admired.

In 1921, famed American realist Edward Hopper illustrated the print, "Night Shadows." The etching shows a lone figure walking down a street beneath the city's looming shadows. Loneliness within rural and urban landscapes was a common theme for Hopper. Meanwhile, Hooper wanted to capture that same sentiment.

"I just like that airports are so isolating to begin with," said Hooper. "I think [my photo] captured that. It was such a close resemblance to the Hopper piece."

Hooper, a Palo Alto resident for the past six years, has to travel all over the country for his work with at a packaged-foods company. An honorable mention winner in last year's photo contest, he decided to enter again just for kicks. -- Terry Tang

Manipulated Images

Shpall doesn't expect to strike it rich with photography, but he does enjoy doing it in his spare time. -- Tyler Hanley