Minnesota teen wins national photo contest

A Minnesota teenager is the grand prize winner in a nationwide photo contest sponsored by Smithsonian Magazine.

Joelle Linhoff, 18, of Minnetonka snapped this year's winning image. It was chosen from more than 8,000 entries submitted from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and 86 nations.

This is the fourth year of the Smithsonian's photo contest, which recognized the best photos in five different categories: The natural world, Americana, people, travel, and altered images -- photographs that have been manipulated for artistic purposes by applying digital or traditional special effects.

Winner in the Americana category — Trey Ratcliff, 35, of Austin, Texas won in the Americana category for his photo of the July 4, 2006 celebration in Austin, along the Colorado River. "It was on the edge of a Texas summer storm, so there was driving wind and rain," says Ratcliff. "I happened to catch this one between wiping down my lens and stabilizing the tripod in the wind."
Photo by Trey Ratcliff, courtesy of the Smithsonian

Linhoff's photo, which was entered in the natural world category, is a landscape of a New Zealand valley at dawn.

Linhoff spent three days vacationing at a camp overlooking New Zealand's Tukituki River Valley. Most days were foggy, says Linhoff, and usually there were no horses in the pasture.

On the day she took the winning picture, there were many horses, including a white one featured in the "Lord of the Rings" movies.

MPR's Tom Crann talked with Linhoff, who says she was just naturally inspired by the scene.

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Winner in the altered images category — The winner in the altered images category is Nicholas Edens, 28, of Toledo, Ohio. He took this photo of a white lion at the Toledo zoo. "For a majestic and strong creature to take on such a soft and humbled expression was amazing to see," says Edens. He selectively altered the lighting, color, softness and detail of the photo with computer software to further express that ethereal moment.
Photo by Nicholas Edens, courtesy of the Smithsonian

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Winner in the natural world category — Teng Wei, 40, of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia won the natural world category for this photo of a group of ants. While shooting photos of an ant colony, Teng picked up a branch and dropped a smaller ant into a group of larger ones. "The bigger ants started to stand up," he said. "For what reason, I don't know."
Photo by Teng Wei, courtesy of the Smithsonian

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Minnesota teen wins national photo contest

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