Photo Contest 2003 | Palo Alto Online |

12th Annual Palo Alto Weekly Photo Contest
First Place, Peninsula People

"Red Purse"
By Brad Evans

About Brad Evans

Brad Evans didn't really expect to do well in this year's photo contest.

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

Click on photo for larger image.

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

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