Participant

The winners of Hey, Hot Shot! have been announced, and not only did I not make it into the top ten, but I have been demoted from Honorable Mention to participant. C’est la vie.

The good news is that the ten winners are all amazing. Two of them are, to my mind, the real standouts of the bunch.

The first, and the person whose work I can’t think of enough superlatives for, is Jennifer Boomer. Take the time to go to her Web site and check out her Greetings from Dutch Harbor series. In some ways, it reminds me of an Alaska version of Simon Roberts’s Motherland, and not just because of the snow. I can’t wait to see how HHS catapults Jennifer’s career.

Copyright © Jennifer Boomer

The second is Todd Forsgren, whose photos of birds caught in nets are so different from anything I’ve seen before. It’s not the kind of work I’m usually drawn to but it grabbed me and won’t let go, kind of like the nets did to the birds.

Copyright © Todd Forsgren

Congratulations to all the winners, and a commiserative pint—beer or ice cream, take your pick—for the also-rans.