Aruba, we started a simple online photography competition with no budget and look were we landed!
It may be a surprise to many that we started a Photography Competition in 2017. But,Nature & Faces brought more then 40 local photographers together showcasing their view and another side of Aruba & it’s people.
With no budget to do much, we decided to keep it low key, but found an interesting partner along the way; “Aruba House” in Doral, Florida.
As the saying goes; “Expect the unexpected”; We were told,
“You make it happen and we will find the place for them in the City Hall of Doral.”
Little we waited and just started on this new adventure. We immediately called our friend Rosabelle Illes and told her listen you will be managing Nature & Faces. She always make everything sound amazing! With little hesitation she took the job and said “We will go big”. She called the 5 major magazines on the island of Aruba. By the end of the day she had all the judges ready to rock! We thank you all dearly.
We did a little bit of research and coding. Placed the idea online and within hours we got our 1st participant! It was election year so allot of hustling had to be done to make Aruba Art Fair 2017 happen, but still we wanted that photography competition and with no money we just kept pushing and without we evening knowing it we reached over 40 participants. Not bad for a no budget photography competition.
The 5 judges chose the winner of the Nature Category (“Morning splendor” by Harold Kelly) & the winner of Faces Category (“Hombi’ Coco” by Mario Gonzalves) and we had them printed.
We must admit that we failed in exposing the winners during Aruba Art Fair, but 2 days after we shipped the prints to our friend Ralph in our sister-city Doral, Florida to be exhibited in their hall. We learned from our mistakes and will continue improving for the next years to come.
In March 2017 we received an email and to our surprise they were being exhibited in the City Hall of Doral, Florida! Can you believe it? We do not know what Ralph is doing over there, but he must be a magician. To our surprise we receive another email later in the month asking for more photographs so we chose 4 more from each category and they went to print in Florida.
Apparently the guys over at Doral Florida are hosting an event on the 31st and they want a complete exhibition of the Nature & Faces photography competition 2017-2018 and yes we are coming in! This is a surprise even for the 2017 participators as they don’t even know they are being exhibited there!
