#ALPHipsta – And the Winners Are…

This was a lot harder than we thought it would be, but the response was amazing.

First, let me say how happy we were to receive so many great images and from all over the World! In total, we had over 160 entries with participants from Guadalajara- Mexico, Mexico City, Cleveland Ohio, Santa Cruz California (go Slugs!), Philly PA, Chicago Illinois, Seattle Washington, Buellton California, Davis California, Lompoc California, San Luis Obispo California, Brooklyn New York, Malvern PA, Bel Air Maryland, Wellington New Zealand, Rocky Hill Connecticut, Tucson Arizona, Naaldwijk Netherlands, Baltimore Maryland, Milano Italy, Brescia Italy, Montevideo Uruguay, Ventura California, Santa Barbara California, and others.

We took all 160+ enteries and widled it down to the group you see below. Then, we broke it down one more time to about ten images before deciding on our top three, except their were four. Then we said, “hey, it’s our contest, we are paying for it, we can have four winners!” Then we added a fifth…

So, the winners are….

Our Grand Prize winner, who will take home a new a Holga 120N and some 120 film along with a Hipstamatic print of her image from Color Services is Melissa Sorongon of Lompoc California!

In full dislosure, I met Melissa after this contest started and after she submitted the picture of her daughter licking cake batter in front of her dad’s “dead soldier collection.” This image says everything about wine for a lot of people in our community. It is a part of their life, a part of the family. It is a beautiful shot and one that touched us.

Our First runner up goes to Alexander East and his beautiful black and white of a tree lined road running through a vineyard. I don’t know what vineyard it is, but maybe Alexander can help us out with that. This shot highlights what can be done with Hipstamatic. Just a beautiful shot!

Our Second Runner-up goes to Tymari LoRe. I think Tymari is from San Luis Obispo California, but I am not sure about that. She also may or may not work in the wine industry, who knows. This shot of Chardonnay being bottled has a lot of what I was hoping for in this contest. It is a beautifuly composed shot of a side of the wine many of us never see. All of Tymari’s shots were beautiful and it was hard to narrow it down to one!

So kudos to Melissa, Alexander, and Tymari! Alexander and Tymari will receive an 8×8″ print of their image from Color Services and Melissa will receive a 10×10″ print and a Holga 120N!

OK, so those are the three winners, all different, all wonderful, but WAIT, there’s more! There are two other images we want to recognize for different reasons.

The first is a shot that Damaris loved, because to her it symobolizes what wine is all about…good food, good friends, and good memories. The shot was taken by Stephanie Cleaver of Brooklyn New York.

The final shot, well…it’s a bit of a suck-up right? But hey, I am a sucker for a suck-ups. Federico Sardi hails fro Uruguay and submitted 20 or 30 pictures, but I thought spelling out ALP in corks was pretty creative!

We are not sure what we will send Stephanie and Federico, but we will think of something.

Thank you all for the wonderful pictures and all of the ffort you put into this. It was inspiring and touching. I am really amazed at all of the hard work and I wish more of you could win!

Here are some more of our favorite shots. But first, some recommended listening.

Monsters and Men – Little Talks

Iggy Pop – The Passenger

Bon Iver – Perth

Fleet Foxes – Montezuma