Glen Ellyn man wins Photo Finish contest
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Daniel Price of Glen Ellyn won first prize in out April Photo Finish contest for this image of lightning over the Volcano Agua in Antigua, Guatemala. |
Daniel Price first visited Guatemala three years ago with his daughter.
They spent six weeks exploring the country in Central America and they both were fascinated by the land, its culture and its people.
About our contest
About our contest
Each week our Neighbor section includes at least one entry to our Photo Finish photography contest. Our photo staff picks one overall monthly winner to receive a prize. If you would like to submit a photo, email it in .jpg format with at least 300 dpi resolution to ssanders@dailyherald.com. Include your name, address and phone number.
“We were almost crying when we got on the plane back,” he says. “We didn’t want to come home. I just fell in love with the country.”
That passion has never waned for either of them.
His daughter, Gloria Jean Price de Garcia, is now married to a Guatemalan and lives there. And Price himself has been back six times.
An avid bike rider, both at home in Glen Ellyn and abroad, Price says he spends long days on his two-wheeler whenever he visits.
He likes to stay in Antigua — admittedly a tourist area — but also likes to get out and meet the people.
And he takes pictures. Lots and lots of pictures. More than 19,000 of them, in fact.
“I’m not a photographer,” he says. “I just take pictures. I don’t know anything about lenses or stuff like that. I just use the smallest digital camera that I can put in my front pocket when I ride my bike.”
He says he’s taken countless pictures of the Volcano Agua near Antigua, but he didn’t get truly lucky until two years ago when he managed to capture an image of a lightning strike above the mountain.
“I thought it was OK,” he says.
He showed it to several people and they all nodded the way people do when they look at someone else’s vacation pictures. Then he showed it to another friend who was far more encouraging.
“He said, ‘you’ve gotta enter that, it’s a beautiful picture,’” Price says.
He followed through on his friend’s advice and his captivating image was selected as the top entry in our April Photo Finish contest.
“The clouds and trees frame the volcano nicely, and he captured the lightning perfectly over the volcano,” DuPage Photo Director Scott Sanders says. “It makes for a very moody photo.”
For his effort, Price wins a $50 gift certificate from PJ’s Camera, 662 Roosevelt Road, Glen Ellyn.
It’s not like Price needs any extra incentive to head back to Guatemala.
He says he’s always excited to meet new people there, and they seem equally thrilled to meet respectful Americans.
“If you look them in the eye, they pretty much invite you into their home and offer you whatever they have to eat,” he says.
He frequently sits in parks, he says, where children come up to him so he can practice his halting Spanish and they can practice their English.
“They say Barack Obama,” he says.
His victory in our April contest already has him thinking about submitting some of his other favorite images from Guatemala, even as he expresses some surprise about the success of his volcano picture.
“If I was a real photographer,” he says, “it probably would have turned out beautifully.”
