Congrats to Lisa!!! She won a 7 Day Cruise to Hawaii

[Abel]

First and foremost I must give a big congratulations to my wife Lisa for winning the group photo contest on our Alaskan Cruise. All of the attendees on the photography cruise got to enter in one of their photos taken on the trip for a chance to win some fabulous prizes.

We almost missed the deadline and Lisa rushed me off to the room so I can edit a couple of our photos before the deadline hit. So I had about an hour to sift through our photos and determine which ones I wanted to enter. As I walked down the hallway to our room I pretty much already made up my mind which I would edit since having our Honeymoon Blog (www.TheLongorias.com) allowed me to view our photos on a daily basis which gave me a good idea of which ones I liked

Here’s Lisa 1st Place winning photo! She won the Grand Prize which was a 7 Day Photography Cruise around Hawaii next summer. The trip is being put on by the same people that organized this Alaskan Cruise and is valued at like $4,500! Way to go Lisa!!!



This is my photo below, it placed second and I won a $300 Software package which is great but now I also have the pleasure of getting razzed by all of my fellow photographers because Lisa beat me! Hehee. It’s ok though, I’ll take the razzing since I’ll be on the beaches of Hawaii come next year!



We were told by some in on the judging process that our two photos were the ones that really stood out as they were first shown. I was also told that the judges kept going back and forth between both of our shots trying to decide which would be the winning photograph. Crazy I know huh.

We were both shocked at the results. There were a ton of entries and many of them were amazing so to have our two shots finish first and second was crazy. Typically Lisa and I can’t enter in contests since most of the time we are the ones organizing them and handling the voting so this was one of the first contest we’ve been allowed to enter into. Lisa has been on cloud 9! I think this is exactly the recognition she needed to really show herself that she does have an eye for photography even tough she may not think so. Congrats Lisa!

Disclaimer: We edited the photos on a notebook so I'm not real sure how they turned out, they may be a bit off hehe)

[windrivermaiden]

Sweet, what a nice way to start a marriage. Congrats by the way. Long may you love.

[ocgirl]

Fantastic! Congratulations to your wife, Lisa! Both of you are wonderful photographers. Beautiful pictures!! I also enjoyed your website very much. Oh, and little Bailey is so darn adorable!!!!

[Abel]

Thanks guys...

It's actually very funny how it worked out. We were in port in Skagway and we had just dropped off all of our gear in the room from photo excursion. I kept my Mark II and my 17-40 with me and slung it over my shoulder just in case I wanted to shoot something. Lisa left her 20d in the room but had her point and shoot with her as she always does.

We left the room and went to the rear outside deck of the ship. There's a very cool back patio with a bar and a bunch of tables. Lisa was busy shooting the sunset while I was at the bar getting something to drink and she was a bit frustrated. She kept saying "this camera isn't wide enough" so I handed her my Mark II with the 17-40 and off she went.

And viola.... I didn't even notice the sunset since I was having major caffeine withdrawals and needed a coke STAT! Hehee.

She shot with my Mark II many times during the cruise since I also had the Mark III at my disposal (Thanks Houston Camera Exchange for the loaner!). What was real funny was that she noticed the major weight difference between the two when she shot a bit with the Mark III. I think she's sold on the Mark III. Hehee

And yes Bailey is a handful... In fact we took him to the vet and he's grown a lot since we left. He gaine 1lb 2 oz!!