BTE

I worked in the financial industry for 25 years before switching to IT. Some of the lingo still sticks. For instance, when a company posts exceptionally good earnings or earnings that aren’t as bad as anticipated they are said to be BTE or Better Than Expected. That’s a great description of how my photos did at the flower show this year.

I entered four photos instead of my usual two. The woman who was running the competition urged me to enter to the Computer Enhanced division. After playing around with my antique version of PhotoShop, I registered for both digital and computer enhanced.

I was the last to sign in my photos yesterday so I had a chance to see everyone else’s work. I almost turned around and went home. The competition was just incredible. So professional. In comparison, my photos looked like they were taken by a child. Ditto my computer enhanced entries. They looked primitive compared to the dramatic effects of the other entries.

The woman running the competition and another photographer urged me to enter my photos. Figuring that the worst that could happen was “Honorable Mention”, the equivalent of “thanks for participating, better luck next time”, I signed in my entries and headed home to watch the Olympics.

This afternoon, before heading over to the Rutgers Gardens booth for my afternoon shift, I stopped by the photo exhibit. Here’s what I found:

Honorable Mention - Digital Color

Honorable Mention - Digital B&W

Third Place - Computer Enhanced Color

First Place - Computer Enhanced B&W

BTE. Waaaaay BTE. I did a little happy dance.

All of these photos have been Photo of the Day on this blog. The original of the Third Place winner can be seen here. I liked the original of the First Place winner so much, I almost entered it in the Color Digital category but I wasn’t sure how the judges would react to seeing the same photo twice, so I went with the tithonia photo instead. You can see the original version of the sundial here.