Hot Pics

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: "Spring Flight," by Jason Barnes, Yosemite, California

Jason writes: "I took this photo on a brisk, breezy spring afternoon in Michigan with my Nikon CoolPix 5400 (set on manual mode to f/7, 1/500 second). After taking the image I converted it to grayscale, but didn't quite like the result. Something about the original color image didn't satisfy me either, so I decided to combine the two. I used the pen tool in Photoshop to cut out the kite and placed it within the grayscale scene. I think that the result emphasizes the kite while maintaining the simplicity of the photo."

Hot Pic of the Month: Each month we choose one of our weekly winners to be the Hot Pic of the Month. For September, we chose "Flowers in the Sun," by Ashlyn Smith, from Redford, Michigan.

Congratulations to Ashlyn and to everyone else who won a Hot Pic of the Week last month. Keep those entries coming!

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