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The competition was designed to help the city build its social media and photography library. Instrumental to the program's success, according to a presentation to the council, were Miramonte students, faculty and leadership class, assisted by Mrs. Churchill, photography and digital design; Ms. Porter, science and leadership; and Ms. Vanover, photography and digital design sub. The Miramonte Environmental Commission (Hadley Peterson, Eva Crinks, Ava Dhaliwal and Leo Wampler) was also recognized as important participant in the challenge.
James Duff, the city's community outreach coordinator, gave the presentation and introduced the winners, who received an award from the city council. Each month for four months the students were provided with prompts giving details of what the city would like that month's photographs to illustrate about Orinda.
In January, the prompt was "Iconic Orinda," and the photograph selected was "Colorful" by Max Langs, depicting a sunrise over Orinda's foggy hills, with bright foliage in the foreground. In response to February's prompt, "infrastructure," winning photographer Reeve Thompson offered "Rainy Leaf," with a vivid red leaf floating on clear water pooling beneath a downspout. March's prompt, "wildfire visual dictionary," was illustrated by Jessica Hui with a photograph entitled "Fire Fuels Mitigation," showing the Orinda chipper at work in the hills of Orinda. Amelie Lo submitted a photograph in response to the April prompt of "lively city," entitled "Veggie Shopping," focusing on people enjoying the Orinda Farmers' Market.
Duff explained that the challenge ran for four months. Although only one outstanding photograph was selected for each of those months, the students had submitted multiple pictures, resulting in a very large cache of photographs for the city to use. Duff says that the city hopes to run another challenge sometime next year.
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Lamorinda Weekly, Moraga CA