January Contest results are up in GD.
[center]January Photo Contest Results for "Lost or Discarded Items"[/center]
LINK
1st Place and WINNER: "Rinse and Recycle" by JohnnyRingo
2nd Place: "Have You Seen Me?" by Earth_First
3rd Place: "Lost in the Fog" by handmade34
[/center]Rounding out the TOP 10 Photos:
4th. "wont someone adopt me?????" by rdking647
5th. "behind Dickie Kay's" by teamster633
6th. "Just Hanging Around" by ManiacJoe
7th. "Out of Gas" by ChisolmTrailDem
8th. "eyewitness" by SouthernDonkey
9th. "Molt and Run" by MichaelSoE
10th. "Bottoms Up in French Quarter" by Laura PourMeADrink
Host's Choice
"Up In Smoke" by Callalily
A big round of applause for all of our TOP 10 Finalists!
A big "THANK YOU" to everyone for your support, comments, and votes![/center]
A special "Thank You" to Celebration! I really appreciated your help.
And to the group - for your patience and support during this month's contest, I thank you, as well.
It's been fun!
Now it's JohnnyRingo's turn!
= new reply since forum marked as read
My personal favorite was Just Hanging Around, both for theme fit and composition, but the winners definitely deserved their wins. 
I never expected to win a photo contest this time or ever, though I've entered a good number of them through the years.
I didn't even mean to enter that particular image. Since my specialty is mechanical stuff, I spent an hour at my friend's British car recycle shop taking pix of MGs buried under a foot of pure Ohio snowflake, but when I uploaded them I thought they lacked texture, color, and interest. As with so many pictures, they looked good through the viewfinder:
When I checked back at the contest entries, I saw there were other junk cars that presented well, so I nixed my original idea and went with the pic I took at a tractor show in the Ashtabula fairgrounds back in August. It turns out I underestimated our DU members' love of flowers over rust and ice from the very beginning.
As the contest began, I faced great anxiety that I may win. It's not that I didn't want to, but that I feared having to host the February contest for my first time. I even voted for someone else hoping I'd snag a safe 2nd place. Since then I've overcome my trepidations and decided I can face the baptismal trial.
I'm not new here, and I know the basics how the contest is run, but lack the experience to do so confidently. There are some details I'm unaware of, like if I have to upload the pix to photobucket myself, how I arrange with Skinner to post the contest in GD, and proper timing for the event.
I've been around here long enough to know you're the one to see about such details, but I don't want to put you out too much with holding my hand. I'll review the posted suggestions in the forum, and choose what I hope will be a likable theme that hasen't been used, but if could use you for my training wheels I'll be much obliged. With your consent I may have to seek advice to make sure the February contest is as successful as so many in the past..
Thanx again to you, Mira, Solly, and all the others who make this forum my favorite DU sanctuary.
I love all of the winners! 
They were all some great shots. Just entering is a big thrill, but placing in the top 10 with all you amazing photographers is quite an honor for me. 
I'm already pumped for next months!
Great job Solly, and thanks again for being such a great host.
