Ok. I’ll admit it. The last of the prizes for the 2007 Photograph of the Year contest just went out last week. It’s not because I’m lazy or cheap or anything, though. I wanted to wait to make sure all the other prizes had gone out before I send the stuff that I had out. I learned my lesson from last year. I sent a bunch of stuff out right after the contest, only to have a couple of advertisers send me more stuff to send out. And when the contests are 100% international (which brings me to the point of this post), it can get pretty expensive. Sending a 12”×12”×12” (that’s 30cm x 30cm x 30cm) package to somewhere in Canada or the US from here (I’m in Barrie, Ontario, Canada) costs $20ish bucks. Sending one to Ireland or Australia or Portugal or something, though, can put me back as high as $120 for the same package. Yikes! No wonder a lot of the sponsors don’t want to ship overseas (and no wonder so many other photography contests, or contests in general, limit their contests to the US or the US and Canada).

I’m pretty sure that this will be the last post about the 2007 Photograph of the Year contest (no promises, though - that being said, I don’t have any more planned or anything). I know the contest ended and the winners were announced 3 weeks ago, but I’ve finally updated all the photo galleries to include all the usernames of every photograph submitted and approved for the contest. Now you have a chance, for the first time, to associate usernames with photographs (with the exception being the top 10 winners, who have already been revealed).

Since the winners of the 2007 Photograph of the Year contest have been announced, a bunch of my time has been taken up by organizing the prizes, and tying up loose ends around the contest. One of the things that is always a bonus when putting our contests together, is all the cool people and advertisers/sponsors I get to work with, and I just wanted to make a quick post about one of our main sponsors of the 2007 Photograph of the Year contest: ScanCafe.

I know, for the past 4+ months, every Friday, we’ve brought you a new SmugMug Corner interview. Unfortunately, because of all the craziness surrounding the 2007 Photograph of the Year contest, along with PMA 08, we’re going to have to skip a week. I know… you’re bummed. You could always read over some of the past interviews, or just check all the sweet photographs from the 2007 Photograph of the Year contest in the galleries: www.photographycorner.com/galleries/showgallery.php/cat/1379. Don’t worry - we’ll be back next week.

After a month-long entry period, followed by a preliminary voting round, which featured 16 groups of 10 photos each, which was followed by a 1-week FINAL VOTING ROUND, it’s time to announce the winners of the PhotographyCorner.com 2007 Photograph of the Year Contest.

The Winner (1st Place) of the PhotographyCorner.com 2007 Photograph of the Year Contest is ybounh with his photograph Ice and Fire!!!

After a month-long entry period, followed by a preliminary voting round, which featured 16 groups of 10 photos each, which was followed by a 1-week FINAL VOTING ROUND, it’s time to announce the winners of the PhotographyCorner.com 2007 Photograph of the Year Contest.

The 1st Runner-Up (2nd Place) in the PhotographyCorner.com 2007 Photograph of the Year Contest is kaipu with his photograph Eyes of Innocence!!!

After a month-long entry period, followed by a preliminary voting round, which featured 16 groups of 10 photos each, which was followed by a 1-week FINAL VOTING ROUND, it’s time to announce the winners of the PhotographyCorner.com 2007 Photograph of the Year Contest.

The 2nd Runner-Up (3rd Place) in the PhotographyCorner.com 2007 Photograph of the Year Contest is nrshapiro with his photograph Dawn Inspiration!!!

After a month-long entry period, followed by a preliminary voting round, which featured 16 groups of 10 photos each, which was followed by a 1-week FINAL VOTING ROUND, it’s time to announce the winners of the PhotographyCorner.com 2007 Photograph of the Year Contest.

The 3rd Runner-Up (4th Place) in the PhotographyCorner.com 2007 Photograph of the Year Contest is ZHeng with his photograph Fetch!!!

After a month-long entry period, followed by a preliminary voting round, which featured 16 groups of 10 photos each, which was followed by a 1-week FINAL VOTING ROUND, it’s time to announce the winners of the PhotographyCorner.com 2007 Photograph of the Year Contest.

The 4th Runner-Up (5th Place) in the PhotographyCorner.com 2007 Photograph of the Year Contest is The732 with his photograph Foes!!!

After a month-long entry period, followed by a preliminary voting round, which featured 16 groups of 10 photos each, which was followed by a 1-week FINAL VOTING ROUND, it’s time to announce the winners of the PhotographyCorner.com 2007 Photograph of the Year Contest.

The 5th Runner-Up (6th Place) in the PhotographyCorner.com 2007 Photograph of the Year Contest is carroll1 with her photograph Winter Wonderment - What’s That?!!!!

After a month-long entry period, followed by a preliminary voting round, which featured 16 groups of 10 photos each, which was followed by a 1-week FINAL VOTING ROUND, it’s time to announce the winners of the PhotographyCorner.com 2007 Photograph of the Year Contest.

The 6th Runner-Up (7th Place) in the PhotographyCorner.com 2007 Photograph of the Year Contest is ciaran with his photograph Behind the Wire!!!

After a month-long entry period, followed by a preliminary voting round, which featured 16 groups of 10 photos each, which was followed by a 1-week FINAL VOTING ROUND, it’s time to announce the winners of the PhotographyCorner.com 2007 Photograph of the Year Contest.

The 7th Runner-Up (8th Place) in the PhotographyCorner.com 2007 Photograph of the Year Contest is sweetrosie_99 with her photograph My Ansel Adams Shot!!!

After a month-long entry period, followed by a preliminary voting round, which featured 16 groups of 10 photos each, which was followed by a 1-week FINAL VOTING ROUND, it’s time to announce the winners of the PhotographyCorner.com 2007 Photograph of the Year Contest.

The 8th Runner-Up (9th Place) in the PhotographyCorner.com 2007 Photograph of the Year Contest is MelB with her photograph Morning Glory!!!

After a month-long entry period, followed by a preliminary voting round, which featured 16 groups of 10 photos each, which was followed by a 1-week FINAL VOTING ROUND, it’s time to announce the winners of the PhotographyCorner.com 2007 Photograph of the Year Contest.

The 9th Runner-Up (10th Place) in the PhotographyCorner.com 2007 Photograph of the Year Contest is Brad V with his photograph Basilique Notre-Dame!!!

For those of you that are just hanging around, waiting in anticipation of the 2007 Photograph of the Year winners to be announced, you’ve only got a couple more hours to wait. Voting finished a couple of hours ago, but you can check out all the entries in the 2007 Photograph of the Year Photo Galleries and comment on all the entries while you wait. And if you’ve already done that, check out the great sponsors of the contest!! Without them, this contest (and all the SWEET PRIZES) would never have happened!

We’ll start by announcing the 9th Runner-Up (10th Place), and work our way up to the winner… Only a couple of hours left….

We’re in the final stretch now - the FINAL VOTING ROUND has begun with 17 AMAZING photographs all vying for the top 10 placements that will earn them over $20,000 in prizes.

In case you didn’t receive your reminder email, or haven’t been around the forums lately, here’s some news: Round 1 voting has begun in the PhotographyCorner.com 2007 Photograph of the Year contest!

Well, the PhotographyCorner.com 2007 Photograph of the Year Contest entry period has come to a close. We received over 400 entries, with around 160 qualifying entries (over half were rejected!! - remember to read the rules before entering a contest!!!). Voting will start during the day on January 18th, 2008 (it’ll take me a couple of days to go through the entries!).

I know we have one more day left, but 2008 is almost upon us. And to celebrate here on the Corner, Erik Bernskiold has created a sweet New Years logo for us! Thanks Erik! With 2008 approaching, however, that means there’s only a little over 1 more day to get HUGE discounts on a lifetime Premiere Membership here at the Corner. Check out this thread for more info on how you can save 50% on a lifetime Premiere Membership. Oh, and one more thing: I’ve spent the last couple of days planning out the dates for all the contests for 2008, including 18 Contest Corner Challenges, & 12 Photograph of the Month contests. Check out the full 2008 calendar on the Corner Calendar.

Oh, and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

And just when you thought the voting was over, this is one of those times where Contest Corner Challenge and Photograph of the Month contests overlap, and we get to vote on not one, but two contests at the same time. This Photograph of the Month contest marks the first one for 2008: the January 2008 Photograph of the Month.