2009 Rural Photography Contest

Help Us Pick the Best of the Barynard

Vote for your favorite farm animal photo in our 2009 Rural Photography Contest.

It’s time to kick off our 20th annual Rural Photography Contest. First up is our Farm Animals category, and we need your help to select the best of the barnyard.

Our editors sorted through hundreds of great reader photos for this category. It wasn’t easy, but we finally narrowed them down to the six finalists shown here. Now it’s up to you to choose the winner by voting for the one you like best.

All six of the readers who shot these great photographs are winners already. As category finalists, each received a check for $100.

The finalist who garners the most votes in this category will receive $200 more, plus a chance to compete against other category winners for the Grand Prize, a trip for two from World Wide Country Tours with a value of up to $3,200!

Two Ways to Vote

To cast a ballot for your favorite scenery photo, vote below!

To vote by mail, write “I vote for No. __” on a postcard and fill in the number of the photo that you like best. Send it to: Rural Photography Contest, Farm Animals Category, Country, 5925 Country Lane, Greendale WI 53129. Whether you vote by mail or on-line, please cast only one ballot.

In our next issue, we’ll announce the winner of this category and ask you to vote for the winner of the Country Scenery category. In the meantime, congratulations to our six finalists. May the best shutterbug win!

A dog’s life. “Our dog ‘A.J.’ loves to put his nose and paws on my patio door, so I closed the gate to prevent daily washings,” says Georgia Degitz of Hannibal, Missouri. “He sure looks sad about it.”	Horse laughs. “My husband’s and son’s horses had just finished eating when ‘Buck’ made this weird face, as if ‘Clipper’ told him something funny,” says Colleen Devine, Mainesburg, Pennsylvania.
Cold nose, warm heart. “This is our golden retriever puppy, ‘Sadie,’ enjoying her first snowfall,” explains Robert Shoemaker of Canastota, N. Y. Looks like Sadie dove in nose-first.	First bath. “Each spring, I go to my aunt and uncle’s to see the new calves,” says Sheryl Slightom, Atwater, Illinois. “This little guy was born just minutes before I took this. Mom is giving him his first bath.”
Cheeky character. Tifani Moos of Pleasant Grove, California submitted this photo of a chipmunk stuffing his face with peanuts. We can all relate to that feeling of needing just one more bite.	He went thataway. This northern saw-whet owl seems to be giving directions. “I took this photo on a crisp spring morning on a ranch in western Montana ,” says Jon Cates from Weatherford, Texas.