Featured Article - January 2010
THROUGH THE LENS
9th Annual New Mexico Magazine
Photo Contest Winners
What better way to start the New Year (and a new decade) than with new perspectives on the New Mexico places we love? If there’s one thing that categorizies the winners of our Ninth Annual New Mexico Magazine Photo Contest, it’s a fresh point of view. This year’s contest tallied more than 1,600 images submitted by 345 photographers. Nearly 60 percent were from New Mexico, the other 40 percent represented 24 states. Our judges were Craig Varjabedian, executive director of the Eloquent Light Photography Workshops; Cathy Wright, director of the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History; and Fabian West, art director of New Mexico Magazine. Our thanks to everyone who participated, especially our generous sponsors.
Michael Mudd, Grand Prize winner, won over the judges with his body of work’s depth, consistency, and viewpoint. Primarily vertical landscape photographs composed with exquisite detail, each image, they note, seems stronger than the next. A former corporate executive for Kraft Foods, Mudd retired to the Santa Fe area a couple years ago.
A hobbyist since he was a teenager, he took numerous photographic expeditions out West but never ventured to New Mexico. “It wasn’t an obvious choice for a new photographer. New Mexico’s beauty is subtler; it takes a different eye to see it. In the last two years, I’ve traveled thousands of miles in New Mexico to photograph and been rewarded every step of the way.” Mudd, who shoots with his digital Nikon D2X, is drawn to a combination of light, color, texture, and form. “The best images that I’ve made aren’t a matter of thought. They are usually composed quickly and almost completely on instinct.Usually, I can tell in the field [if I’ve captured a great shot]. It feels like something magic just happened. If that can happen once or twice in a day, I’m more than happy.”
Speaking with New Mexico Magazine from Great Sand Dunes National Park, in Colorado, Mudd says he looks forward to devoting his time to photography in the future. “I really am in heaven right now. Because I’m retired, I can pick where I want to go and when I want to go there. I’d say almost half of the outcome for any landscape photographer is luck, because of the conditions you encounter. I look forward to being able to research when to be in what place, to increase the odds that what I find when I get there will be incredible. I look forward to lots more days like today.”
See more of his work at www.pbase.com/michaelmudd.
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New Views: 8th annual New Mexico Magazine Photo Contest Winners
We unveil the winners of our eighth-annual New Mexico Magazine Photo Contest. Plus: Watch a slideshow of the winning images and a video of the contest judging.
