'Sunlight & Storm' Photo Contest Open

In an effort to challenge and inspire local photographers, the Courier and Sean R. Heavey are asking for submissions to the first edition of the Sunlight & Storm photo contest to be held over the course of the 2017 summer.

The challenge is to capture the weather or sky of Northeast Montana in a unique and compelling way. The photograph must contain an image involving Northeast Montana's weather or sky such as the sunset, Aurora Borealis, cloud formations, the Milky Way or a thunderstorm. Photo specifications must be large format JPEG with a minimum dimension 1280 by 960 at 300 dpi in order to ensure cover print quality.

The grand prize winner will receive an award certificate, $100 in prize money as well as the honor of being the feature cover image on a special publication to be released in early fall 2017. The runner-up will receive a $50 prize.

The judges for the contest will be local area photographer, Montana Treasured Artist and Courier contributor Sean R. Heavey, past Courier photo intern and local artist Amy Nelson, and Courier staff to include editor James Walling. Photos will be judged on subject matter, composition and quality, and must be authentic, unaltered images. For inspiration or to see Heavey's works check out this month's edition of Farm & Ranch available in this issue of the Courier or go to his website at SeanRHeavey.com.

All contestants must provide their image, name and contact information as well as the date the image was captured, a description of the image and place it was taken, the names of any person, place or thing featured in the photo, and a description of the equipment used to capture the image. Email entries to [email protected] no later than midnight August 6, 2017.

The National Weather Service offers guidelines and educational courses on storm safety if photographers desire to capture severe weather such as thunderstorms, hail, flash floods or any hazardous event. It is necessary to become educated on recognizing the dangers and knowing how to stay safe in such situations. See "Stay Safe While Capturing Mother Nature" below.