Since starting less than two months ago, our Flickr community has quickly flourished and now includes contributions from 170 talented photographers. If you're interested in seeing quality photography done with compacts, our pool is a great place to start.

The theme of our first contest was "Natural Textures", and we were fortunate to receive 21 fantastic entries. The voting period is over, and I am happy to announce the winners.

1st Place - "Stacked Lumber" by ndalum78 (27 votes):




2nd Place - "Red Tulips" by fxgeek (22 votes):




3rd Place - "Tree outside Central Library, Hull" by Hiding Pup (12 votes):




4th Place - "Prevailing Wind" by Wouter Brandsma (10 votes):




5th Place - "Crepe" by pbrouss84 (9 votes):



Thanks to all who submitted photos and/or voted, and congratulations to the contest winners!

Our first photo contest is now closed to submissions and open for voting. Thanks to all who submitted an entry!
Please take a few minutes to review some of the wonderful submissions and cast your vote.
The photos are shown below the poll, and voting will end after 7 days.

Most of the images below have resized by Flickr and therefore may have more sharpening than intended by the photographer. Clicking on them will take you to the Flickr page, which in many cases will contain larger versions as well as commentary. Order of photos is as determined by Flickr.

"Ants Out for a Walk" by JD Hodges:




"Heil Banker" by slowbicycler:




Untitled photo by Photon-hunter:




"Something is falling from the tree" by Damiel:




"Red Tulips" by fxgeek:




"waiting" by -fs-:




"Tree outside Central Library, Hull" by Hiding Pup:




"Cables" by cliffordsax:




"Blue Flowers" by Ulf Bodin:




"Deer track" by RJY:




"flavors..." by f lynx:




"Prevailing Wind" by wrtb28mm:




"Crepe" by pbrouss84:




"Sealilly" by Skippy1958:




"Rock & Shells Weston Beach" by tom911r7:




"Stacked Lumber" by ndalum78:




Untitled photo by Kamerat:




"Wood Ring" by britton42x:




"Sand Pile" by jjvornov:




"lichen" by meaning of light:




Untitled photo by cristian.soreaga:

Today and tomorrow only. More participation will bring additional contests, sponsors, and better prizes. Contests are fun, so come contribute a photo! Click here for contest details.

The SeriousCompacts.com Flickr Group is off to a great start. The pool now includes photographs by more than 70 photographers representing six continents. In order to encourage the continued growth of our Flickr community, I'm pleased to announce the first Serious Compacts Photo Contest. The assigment for this contest is "Natural Textures". All are welcome to compete and/or vote in the contest, and entry is free.

To compete, simply add your photo to the SeriousCompacts.com Flickr group and tag the entry with "seriouscompacts1".

You can get to the Flickr group by clicking the banner below:



Contest Rules:
- Participants must be members of the SeriousCompacts.com Flickr group.
- Only one photo submission per person.
- You must own the copyright to the image to enter it in the contest.
- Post-processing (with Photoshop, etc) is permitted.
- The camera/lens combination used to take the photo must be compact by your standards.
- Both film and digital camera submissions are welcome.
- Photos entered in the contest must have been taken in April 2008.
- Either the description or tags of each entry should specify the camera (and lens if separate) used to take the photo.

Contest Prizes (in US dollars):
1st Place: $100
2nd Place: $50
3rd Place: $25

The Flickr group is open to submissions at this time, and we will continue to accept entries through 11PM GMT on April 30, 2008. At that time, those of us who author here will post a subset of our favorite entries, and a vote will be held on the blog to determine the winners from those selected photos.*

*For the purposes of the vote, selected entries will be displayed on the blog. Winning entries will also be displayed here. By entering the contest, you agree to have your photo displayed here for these purposes.

Special thanks to Guy Mancuso for letting us announce this contest in the excellent Small Sensor Cameras Forum at GetDPI.com