Every year around Easter there is a two week long show on in Sydney. Staged by the Royal Agricultural Society, it was originally a "City meets Country" show but has expanded to include domestic animals (the Boxer exhibit is on Wednesday 11 April), sideshows, rides, and arts and crafts exhibits including photography.

(Speaking of which, I haven't processed the photos of my visit there last year aside from that day's PAD.)

Photographers can submit a single entry into any of the following categories: 10 (Rural Subject), 11 (Human Form), 12 (Urban Landscape), and 13 (Open). Anyone can enter (for a fee), but not everyone who enters is guaranteed to be exhibited (and the fee is non-refundable).

Anyway, I've decided to take my first crack at a competition. After all, what have I got to lose aside from a bunch of self esteem and a few bucks?

I've gone for the Open category (13; that has to be a good sign, right? Right???) and the Rural category. No, I have no idea what I was thinking there either since urban is normally more my thing, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

The first problem; since I display almost entirely on screen I know very little about photo printing except that my personal printer (the Epson "Printce (sic) Of Darkness" R210) makes really awful ones compared to the screen view. So along I trot to the professional lab. The guy, who sees a lot of competition entries, is underwhelmed by my Open entry. (Which is my PAD for 23 July last year, currently my profile shot.) Bad sign. The first print looked better than anything that the Epson could do but was too light; too much saturation was lost from the rocks. "You'll never get it to exactly match the screen", he said. "That part I had figured out", I replied. We take another shot at it. While it's printing I ask about framing. "Oh, we do professional framing; it would but cost you $65. You'd be better off going to Ikea or Freedom Furniture". Ooooh-kay. Finally, he knocked a couple of bucks off the standard price of the print.

I think this was his way of saying "Don't spend too much money on this, and don't spend too much time working up a prize acceptance speech either, you probably won't make the first (n-1) places".

To be honest the thought of winning only barely fluttered through my mind, I certainly didn't have any serious expectation of it (or even running a place) in my first contest when I only get to take shots when I can, compared to people who are doing it constantly. But the feeling I had when I walked out of there was "I'm screwed. But you", looking at the photo, "still have to be framed." So this morning I did go to Ikea and I did get a frame, and... this is it. Or part of it. The photo actually looks much, much better than it appears here especially in direct sunlight. Let's face it, artistically speaking taking a photograph of another photograph is a complete waste of time (unless it's merely the image upon which to hang a story like this one) because it will never be as good as the original, and usually obviously so.

Which makes me wonder about all of those paranoid professional photographic print sellers (there's one in the QVB) who have signs plastered all over their windows shrieking "No Photography! Don't Take Photos Here! Cameras Begone!" What, they seriously think that someone will take a shot of their work through the window, print it out (possibly on an Epson R210) and hang that on the wall??? Gimmie a break...

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