A huge congratulations to all who entered the Best Emerging Photographer Photography Contest, hosted by Nations Photo Lab and myself. We have named our winners!! There was a great deal of talent and inspiration in this gallery, with over a thousand entries – we truly enjoyed viewing all your creative work. A big CONGRATS to the following: 1st Place/Best Emerging Photographer: Maria F Bay 
2nd Place: Dollface Photo 
3rd Place: Jane Brown & Co 
And an Honorable Mention: Shannon Porter Photography 
Winners, please email Ashley at Nations Photo Lab to redeem your lovely prizes! If you did not win this time, as a big THANK YOU, Nations Photo Lab is lending a small prize to each and every one of you who submitted. Simply click on this form to enter your contact information and access your prize details. We so enjoyed this one – there will be more contests coming up, check out both Nations Photo Lab and Tamara Lackey on Facebook for announcements for the next one! And don’t forget – if you are printing your work (and hopefully you are printing your work), you can use the following promo codes for some amazing savings: For those who have never used Nations Photo Lab to print their work before, you can use the code NEW50 to get $50 off your first order with them (just remember to use the ROES software you can download on their site to be able to use the promo code!). For those who already are customers of Nations Photo Lab, don’t worry – you are not being left out. You can use PRINT40 to get 40% off any ongoing print orders – and that is even on top of some of their frequent sales, so that can really add up to a lot of savings on beautifully-printed work. Both of these codes expire on June 1st, 2014, and the PRINT40 code can be used repeatedly until then, so ENJOY IT!
Congratulations to the winners, your art is stunning and awe inspiring!
I can’t believe I won!! This is so exciting! Thank you so much for the opportunity to participate!! I am a huge Tamara fan and this is unreal!!
Congratulations, Maria!!
I don’t quite subscribe to the photoshop image that wins, but the two others are lovely! Congrats to all who won and participated!
Maria your image is beautiful, but saying that, its hard to be believe that could be considered a photograph.
Sorry Mariela, the contest was for photography not filter effects. The beginning of the contest requested 5 photographs, which I’m sure some assumed the skill of the photographer would be judged across all 5 photos.
Congrats to the winners – everything looked phenomenal !!
Could the judges perhaps give us a glimpse into the “why” for the winning selections? Just curious what they saw and what made them choose these. Tons of great entries btw !!
Hi, all – Given that this initial contest (there will be more) was exactly that, a first, we very much wanted it to be a wide open competition. That means it was open to all genres and styles – weddings, family, boudoir, babies, children, newborns, sports, landscapes, illustrative, composites, editorial, commercial, insert-your-style-here, really alllllll.
I have judged a variety of international competitions, and I know the importance of judging like against like – given the amount of entries, we will probably look to create different tracks going forward. But, in this case, we wanted the contest to be completely wide open, with very little restriction, and we loved seeing all the results.
And, of course, please note that the impact/skill/composition/pose of the photograph still had to be strong by itself, prior to compositing, in order for it to even be considered for placement. Thanks, again, to all who entered – and another hearty congratulations to the winners!!! : )
Proud to get the Honorable Mention! Even the slightest bit of recognition helps a creative mind. FWIW – the wedding photo above is basically SOOC. Fun contest to be a part of. Maybe next time! Thank you for the opportunity, Tamara.
Awesome work, congratulations to you all.
Some great photos! I love your sensilility for details. Following you.