Photography and the Yellow Pages: A competition

My 'hood, yo. AKA the place in my area that I frequent most.
You're welcome for me cropping the sides and the front-muffin on the middle aged dude standing to the right.

So photography is clearly not one of my strong points.

I have long suspected as much, and this was confirmed when I attempted to take a few pics that were interesting, unique, artistic...yeah anyway...I failed.

Local retirement home wall. There was something special there at the time. Clearly I missed it.
I was hoping there would still be some artistic / abstract appeal to this image. I was wrong.

The Yellow Pages sent me a Panasonic HD Digital Camera.  It's orange.  I love it.  I could quite literally drool over it, since it is also waterproof.

They sent me this piece of waterproof awesomeness so that I could participate in and promote their Capture the Cover competition.

Why the contest?

It marks a change to the way the Yellow Pages is issued.

Gone are the days of one massive set of books that covers the entire state.  No more hiring a forklift to lug that sucker up onto the bench in order to search for a business.

The new Yellow Pages will consist of 5 editions, split into regions, with a focus on the businesses and services in your area.

Remember that old Yellow Pages slogan "let your fingers do the walking" - yeah they'll be walking less.  Best you find some other form of exercise for them.

Renowned Perth photographer, Steve Fraser, will be juding the entries.

And while I think it's safe to assume that my images will not make the finals, there are 10 places up for grabs on the cover of each of the 5 localised editions of the 2013 Yellow Pages.

The winning image will have pride of place on the cover, and also the choice between an iPad and a Canon camera (and should you already have both, you are more than welcome to send the iPad my way.  I will take one for the team, heh).

The 9 runner's up will each receive a $50 gift card and smaller places on the cover.

Tropical palm trees. Finger over lens bonus feature.
Bonus feature not available on Instagram, suck it.

So while my own photographic brilliance is decidedly lacking in brilliance, you can start snapping pics of your own area and enter the competition here.

The theme of the contest is "through the eyes of a local" - so here's hoping your local area is filled with far more interesting and photographic items than retirement home brick walls, shopping centres and power poles and palm trees.

Be sure to check the competition site for full terms and conditions, as there are some requirements on image quality, format, size and content.

Please, send multiple entries so they don't have to resort to any of these options.

 EDIT 5 JULY : The site had a few issues, so the competition will now be going live Monday 9 July.  I will post the link again on Monday's post.  My apologies for the confusion.  I blame Justin Bieber, the little dude with the perfect hair totally controls the internet. I am sure he's the blame, somehow.