Final Photo Contest -- Ends Wed Morning

So this is the week. -- The week to submit 6 photos of Libby Doodle Doo to the Parents magazine cover contest. Actually the deadline is this Wednesday June 24th -- so vote now.

I've spent some time during the last week looking at covers of Parents and photos of past winners (that's last year's winner at the beginning of this post) to get a feel for what the judges may be looking for. And I've looked through the photos that you folks liked best to determine which ones should be submitted in this final judging.  I only included photos that got at least 33% of the votes -- even if it was one of the top 6 that week.  So once I applied that criteria , I had less than 18 to post here .  To give you some variety in this last vote,  I rounded out the list with some photos that I thought showed a range of facial expressions and poses (a few of which are ones that I haven't posted yet).

The criteria that the judges are using to pick the semi-finalists (and therefore I'm suggesting the ones we should use here too) include:

34% Appearance of the child
33% How well the photo captures the child's personality 
33% Quality of photo (this one has been tough since I'm not that great at photography)

What they don't say in the rules (but was clear after I looked at past years winners) is that they want photos where the child is looking directly into the camera and that they want the child to look happy, joyful, playful, sweet, silly, etc. (not serious, pensive, etc)

I'm allowed to submit 6 photos. I figure I'll include 4 to 5 in which the Doodle is looking directly into camera (showing a variety of facial expressions -- most happy) and 1 to 2 in which she is not looking into the camera. I want to show variety in my submission -- different hairstyles, different clothes, different poses.

So I've divided this final vote into 2 separate contest -- one in which you'll pick the best of the "Looking straight into the camera" shots and one in which you'll pick the best of the "Looking away from the camera" photos.

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PHOTOS LOOKING STRAIGHT TO CAMERA (choose 5)




#1


#2

#3

#4


#5

#6



#7

#8

#9

#10


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PHOTOS LOOKING AWAY FROM CAMERA (choose 2)

#11


#12

#13

#14

#15

Finally, I want to thank all of you who have helped me narrow down the photos for this contest. I appreciate your input. And whether Libby Doodle Doo gets to be a finalist, wins, or doesn't get any further than the first round -- I now have about 20 lovely photographs capturing her at a little over 2 years old.

So we're a winner -- no matter what happens.