Hot Pic of the Week

Get published, get famous! Each week, we select our favorite reader-submitted photo based on creativity, originality, and technique. Every month, the best of the weekly winners gets a prize valued at between $15 and $50.

Here's how to enter: Send us your photograph in JPEG format, at a resolution no higher than 640 by 480 pixels. Entries at higher resolutions will be immediately disqualified. If necessary, use an image editing program to reduce the file size of your image before e-mailing it to us. Include the title of your photo along with a short description and how you photographed it. Don't forget to send your name, e-mail address, and postal address. Before entering, please read the full description of the contest rules and regulations.

This Week's Hot Pic: "Tight-Lipped Fellow," by Brian D. Watters, London, Ontario

Brian writes: "With a Canon 20D EOS in hand (including an 18-to-55 mm lens and a Canon 420EX Speedlite with Luminance Bouncer attached), and lying on my stomach in the wet muddy leaves at the edge of a bog, I waited patiently for this little fellow to surface. Surface it did, but not in front of the lens. So I began to move my camera. When I thought everything was just right, the frog dove again. We played this game for about five minutes. Finally, I thought I figured out the pattern, and my little green playmate came up right in front of the lens. Without an active display on the back of the camera, I had no idea if the frog was in focus, but the camera's beep told me something was. This is the end result of my time in the mud."

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