Congratulations to Afton Almaraz, Brett Benham, Janine Stengel, and Daryl Peveto for their winning entries in our portraits shoot out! Follow the "Continue..." link below to see a gallery of the winners and all 230 entries! Thanks to everyone who submitted for providing such a variety for our judge to look through!

Congratulations to Matt Mcloone, Brett Zeigler and Jonathan Makiri, the winners of this session's shoot-out, Friends & Family. Guest judge Les Walker provided an enlightening and entertaining critique of the images submitted. To see galleries of the winners' photos as well as all the photos that ere entered click the "Continue reading..." link below.

From time to time Brooks NPPA organizes a photography competition around some event or theme in the Ventura area. Inspired by a generous (and massive) donation of Fuji 120 film by Santa Barbara photographer Randy Leffingwell, Brooks NPPA presented the VJ students with the opportunity to utilize the film in a creative and unorthodoxed competition. Thus, Holga Mania was born!

Students were presented with the challenge to go out into the world and take photojournalistic photographs with the Holga cameras and 120 film we'd given them. We hoped the contest would encourage students to think of finding light and moments without worrying about a camera's technological gadgetry. Holga's a incredibly limiting and amazingly liberating at the same time; without the ability to chimp you can only hope your photo came out, but you can also focus on getting the next image without wasting time looking at the back of the camera. So, with the tenets of the journalist in mind the photographers were sent out to manually wind their way through this challenge, and this is what they came back with! Ooh yeah, BROTHER!

For those born too early or too late, here's the reference you're missing: Hulkamania