Smithsonian Magazine Contest Finals!

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I’ve been selected as a finalist in the 18th annual Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest!

My photo “San Manuel Milky Way” was officially selected as a finalist in the category “The American Experience”, highlighting the beauty of the American southwest and the desert night skies.

The American Experience: Events, objects or activities connecting the American people to their history or their cultural heritage; photographs that tell us what it means to be an American and provide a sense of what it is like to live in this country.

Smithsonian Magazine

As a finalist, I am counting on you, my loyal fans and readers, to consider voting for me as Reader’s Choice on the Smithsonian Magazine website. You can vote once per day until March 31, and please encourage your friends to do the same.

This photo was taken last May, at a time when we were all really starting to feel the weight of the pandemic. Getting out into the wide open desert in the middle of the night and looking up at the vast expanse of stars is a surefire cure for cabin fever after two months of working from home, grocery delivery, and cancelled plans. The silence of the sleeping desert, broken only by sounds of crickets and the occasional howl of a distant coyote, is really therapeutic.

San Manuel, located north of Tucson, is a fantastic spot for stargazing. The Catalina mountains help to block out some of the light pollution from the city, and a huge forest of saguaros covers the hills. These cacti are hundreds of years old and tower way above your head–the photo doesn’t really do justice to their scale. And as with a lot of great photos, there was definitely an element of luck involved: only one car drove down the road the whole night, providing perfect light painting to the desert landscape.

I’m extremely excited to have been selected. I enter these contests every now and then, but given the thousands of amazing entries they receive I’m never very confident in my chances (though I guess we’re all our own toughest critic).

Wish me luck, and don’t forget to vote! Winners are announced in the spring. 🤞

UPDATE: I’m extremely excited and honored to announce that I was in fact selected as one of 8 winners! They received over 45,000 entries from photographers all over the country, and to even have made it to the finals, let alone win, just totally blows me away. You can find my winning photo in May’s issue of Smithsonian Magazine (pg. 74) and online on Smithsonian Magazine’s website.