The last time I remember someone firmly saying I was halfway through something, it was a stern-faced biology professor (my most loathed teacher, Mr. Hewit) reminding me I was halfway through my university entrance exams.
A sort of walking aspen tree of a man, with a plastic comb mustache and Harry Potter glasses, who was always going on about how constantly talking in bad puns showed, “A mastery of the English language.” Anyone who grew up in North County San Diego and was taught by this man instantly knows who he is. My DMs are open.
What I’m getting at here is the combination of his entire presence and his reminder of my time crunch at that moment pranged me out so much that I failed the math section so horribly that I had to retake the entire test again. So, yeah, being reminded you’re halfway through something isn’t always the best. For example, being told you’re halfway to 30 doesn’t seem all too bad. Until it is.
But it isn’t always terrible. A waiter comes over and says you’re halfway through a wonderful meal? Look how much you have to enjoy right in front of you! Halfway through a workout? Look how much you’ve done! Finish strong, all that good stuff.
Anyway, we’re about halfway through our Together Again contest with VERO, here, and we’ve been loving everything we’ve seen so far. And while there are some photos we are so sad we had to make the decision against, we’re also ecstatic we have the opportunity to pick more great shots and highlight equally great photographers. Even if they weren’t necessarily picked the first time around. Choices! We have them. The beauty of having more time.
That, and, we have a gallery showing at the Wasted Talent Studio waiting at the end of it all with our winners. Nice photos, drinks, and a guaranteed wonderful evening in our studio? All with a grand prize winner announced at the end? Well, that’s like getting halfway through that meal and being told by the same waiter that you have dessert, an espresso, and it’s all on the house waiting on the other side.
See, being told your halfway through something doesn’t always have to be the worst. And besides, there’s no time like the present. With that, let’s meet this week’s Together Again shortlisted.
Alex is a freelance journalist, photographer, illustrator and audiovisual producer. He shows his visual style through portraying social movements and realities invisible to the general media spotlight. Specialising in documentary films, he has co-directed the award-winning short documentary “In Between Tracks” and directed the short film “The Last Straw: Portrait of a Sentence” plus multiple photographic series. Now he runs his own production company, Panot Films — shooting documentaries and photographs for social transformation.
Chris Llerins is a visual artist from Barcelona, Spain, currently living in Los Angeles, CA. “I see film as a framework to express my own definition of art,” Chris tells us. “An unwrapped roll of infinite space to stretch reality and find within me this garden of nostalgic thoughts and stories I still have to tell.”
You can still sign up for VERO, and enter the contest now.
“I love the flip twist to an already creative photograph with Chris’s,” says one of our judges, Nick Pumphrey. “And the absolute authenticity and emotion of Alex’s documenting,” he added on as well.
As we mentioned, there are still two more rounds of winners to be announced after today! So if you didn’t get selected now, don’t worry. There’s still plenty of time. That, and a $1000 grand prize and magazine feature in your feature as well. Until then, follow us on VERO for more Together Again updates and to submit your entries.
