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Today, December 11, I received the results of this year’s Spider Awards. This particular contest is one that draws a lot of excellent work from all over the world and consequently the competition is a rather difficult one in which to place. At at the same time some of the choices or exclusions by the jury baffle me, but that’s art…not everyone likes the same pictures.

My main blog post for this is on the http://www.myq-art.com page, but three of the images are more suited for that page.
But “Imp in the Evening” seems more suited to this site so I’m sharing it here.

“Imp in the Evening” – Nominee in “Children of the World.”

I actually prefer the color version, but the Spider Awards are black and white.

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Another trip around the sun accomplished so it must be time for an annual selfie of some kind. This one was inspired by actually two days before feeling like I wanted to pull my flesh off myself. It’s been an ongoing battle for a long time which is only become more and more into focus between what in the faith we call the old man and the new, not old as in oh wow I’m old, but old as in before baptism and the renewal of water. But sometimes the old man doesn’t wanna die, and we’ll fight fist tooth, and nailed to continue to exist. This image was made to try encapsulate that feeling.

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The Prix de la Photographie Paris 2025 (PX3) award winners were announced this week.
I’m pleased to share that “An American Addiction” received another honorable mention from this block of international awards (PX3, Tifa, Bifa, and IFA are all from the same sponsor I think).

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You can see all the winners here.

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As we near the end of August 2025 I have to admit I didn’t get ANYwhere near what I wanted to accomplish this year. Life happens, my what is probably ADHD has been as bad as ever (I just know what it is now but am not any closer to working around it) and as such my big 10 year anniversary this month is…just a note. I have ideas how I’d like to handle looking back as well as forward, but while I’m great at making plans and celebrating results, MAKING those results happen is just more than I seem capable of handling.

There are also a number of other issues:

1 – Why focus on a hobby while the world falls apart? People are starving and dying and I’m worried about how to get caught up on my editing load. Seems daft.

2 – A.I. I feel like anything I put out there, even on my page, is just fodder for our eventual overlords.

I feel like the only answer I really have at the moment is that those of us who have the luxury of peace and free time should spend some of that time keeping the human creative spirit alive. Someone has to carry the torch, that spark of the creative we get from the Creator, a communion of sorts when we’re closest to Him. We all have different opportunities to find the divine; some via creating like the Creator, others joining their suffering with the Redeemer. This seems a bit glib perhaps, but I’m just trying to make sense of it all myself.

As for the AI…it too is trying to create like us and yet doesn’t have the soul to do it. We who create with soul have to keep that spirit alive and can’t surrender to the cold code some continue to feed perhaps not realizing it’ll never be satisfied.

“Never give up, never surrender!”

Anyway, these are musings, not answers, and I didn’t have most of this in mind when I started typing. But in these times when we are able to freely speak but not able to connect sometimes we speak into the void and maybe one of you will even read this, and just maybe it’ll give you enough to keep the spark alive one more day, whatever that means for you.

“Take care of yourselves, and of each other.”

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The Best Photography Awards announced their winners Friday and I’m pleased to share that “Between the Paws of the Sphinx” from 2019 took an honorable mention in the “Travel” category, and the “Lilac-Breasted Roller” from 2024 took an honorable mention in “Wildlife”.

You can see the entire show here.

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The London International Creative Competition awards for 2024 were announced March 20th (Happy First Day of Spring!)

My series “An American Addiction” was placed on the shortlist on the non-professional side.
Best I can make out entries can receive an Official Selection, from there they can move to the Short list, and from that smaller pool the winner is chosen.

I’m pleased to have made it to the final round and didn’t really expect to win given that I won in 2022, but given how different this project is compared to “Dreamtime” it’s nice to have made it as far as I have.

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You can see all the winners here and my entry write-up here.

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I often stumble upon random online contests. Since I went to Africa in September of 2o24 for a safari in the Serengeti I have some wildlife photos so, despite this not being a new area of focus, I figured I’ve got them, why not enter?

So while reviewing my backlog of unlisted / unannounced contests I found that one of my images was included in a select gallery for the Wild Photo Awards from October’s 2024 entries.

This is a cape buffalo and was one of the first images I made in Kenya, while it was all super fresh and exciting. It’s probably the best shot of this particular animal that I got.

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You can get a better look at the other “Highly Recommended” images, as well as the winner and runner-up here.

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The Tokyo International Foto Awards dropped today, and I was pleased to see my series on sugar that I called “An American Addiction” received an honorable mention. Since this was a rare serious project for me it’s gratifying to have received another award for it.

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You can see all the winners here.