And we have a winner: Ang Cheng Ann aka Sunny aka @zekezachzoom!! Sunny is the winner of the inaugural (Yes, there will be more!) Lensbaby USA / Toy Photographers Bingo Challenge! To be entered into this epic challenge (complete with epic prize), we simply asked members of our community to create 13 photos from various word prompts. Even with a year to complete the task, only 14 photographers made it over the finish line!!
Photo challenge are notoriously difficult. It doesn’t matter if its a seven day, one month or 365 day challenge; that kind of commitment can be difficult. Not getting sidetracked by [waves hands at everything] is a cause for serious celebration! I wish I had a prize to give to everyone who finished this herculean task! Plus I’m very grateful for Lensbaby for being so gracious in donating this amazing gift.
Announcing the winner!
Because I wanted to make this contest as inclusive as possible, everyone was welcome to enter. This meant admins, writers and everyone who helps to keep this blog going. Again, to make this as fair a contest as possible, I decided to choose the winner at random. I think you will see when you look at the entries, that choosing the best one would be a very difficult choice.
Of course announcing the winner was a great excuse to gather everyone together over ZOOM. Its been ages since we have connected in person. This gave us a chance to look at all the entries and also watch me pull the winner’s name out of the hat. This was the cherry on top so to speak. It was great fun to see everyone in person. We all agreed it had been too long and this year we will do a mid year check in. You know, any excuse to get together with friends!
While Sunny might have been our random winner, I honestly feel that everyone who finished the challenge is a winner. To complete such an epic task needs to be celebrated!
I hope you will help me celebrate these heroic photographers by leaving a comment below. And why not join us for this years Bingo Challenge!
The entries
Not shown are entries by Barb, Joshua, and Matthew. I will update the post as they come in.
If you’re not a member of our MeWe Community I hope that you will consider joining us. We’re an out of the way corner of the internet made up of passionate toy photographers. We’re a place to get feedback on your images, join monthly challenges, connect in a deeper fashion than on other platforms via the chat function, and get a chance to have your work featured on our social channels. Plus you will be the first to hear about the new prompts for the 2024 Toy Photographers Bingo Challenge!!
Thank you again to everyone who entered! You’re all winners in my book!
Shelly
This was a lot of fun! I am looking forward to doing it again this year!
Fun indeed, and quite the challenge: How do I get to make the pictures I‘d planned to make and cover the Bingo topics simultaneously? Most of the time, it worked. One of the series I was originally working on took some unexpected – yet pleasant – turns. And then there were the themes that weren’t my cup of tea at all… But in the end, we made it. Congrats, fellow Bingoers!
This was one of the most fun activities we’ve had – I had to really challenge myself to get past some of the prompts and that was great! Learning new skills while playing is fun!
It was fun, and great to have some set ideas to shoot when your ‘what should I photograph today’ ideas are running dry.
Had a lot of fun with the 2023 Bingo challenge and loved seeing all the entries. Amazing work.
Looking forward to the 2024 Challenge
I love seeing all these! So glad you’re able to share everyone’s work, and congratulations to those who got the whole bingo!
Also, hats off to those photographers who were “oh, so close, but then life got in the way.” Looking forward to seeing their work in this coming year.