Alert Naperville photographer wins our monthly contest

At first, the image looks a bit staged.

Looks too perfect, really, reflecting the exact moment when all three black-and-white dogs turned their heads in unison. And one dog is wearing sunglasses.

But Nancy Huber says she was just one of many tourists on the street below a three-story building in Ketchikan, Alaska, on a cruise stop in July 2007 when she caught sight of the pooches.

The Naperville interior designer was hunting for an unexpected something to catch her shutterbug eye.

A predictable vacation picture? Maybe a postcard sunset? Nah.

But a dog wearing sunglasses and peering out a window? Eureka!

“I love to look for something that somebody else might not see, or the unusual things,” Huber, 63, said. “Just capture that moment that may have only happened for a short period of time, just a moment, but it tells a story.”

She has a hunch her image tells a story of three loyal dogs waiting for the moment when their owner returns home. And the sunglasses?

“The owner had a sense of humor,” she said.

The image proves to be one of her favorites since she started snapping photos in high school with the instant gratification of a Polaroid.

And this image — captured with a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H5 digital camera — proves to be the choice of the month in our Photo Finish contest. As her prize, Huber will receive a $50 gift certificate from PJ’s Camera, 662 Roosevelt Road, Glen Ellyn.

DuPage Photo Director Scott Sanders applauded Huber’s readiness.

“It shows that it pays to have your camera with you and ready to get a fast shot and to look for photos in non-obvious locations when on vacation,” Sanders said.

Huber says having her camera with her paid off in a more important way.

The cruise was her last vacation with her husband before he died from leukemia about nine months later. He was diagnosed four weeks after the couple returned home and quickly started treatment. He never saw the prizewinning picture.

“Any picture I have means so much more,” Huber said. “And I always wish I had more. You don’t ever realize until after someone’s gone how much you wish you had that picture.”

Her camera preserved the memories and “the good times”: smiling faces, happy faces and a dog wearing those crazy sunglasses.

“There will always be another sunset,” she said.