Dear John,

If you entered OLCV's 2023 Photo Contest, thank you! We received over 500 photos this year, and the OLCV staff was awed by so many of them. To help select runner-ups, we created the categories, “Landscapes”, “People & Pets”, and “Wildlife”.

For “Landscapes”, the winner is Bob Davidson's photo of Succor Creek Canyon in Adrian, OR. Bob wrote along with his entry, “I love getting out to this area. It is still so wild and lonely.”

Adah Crandall’s photo of a student hanging their screenprinting at the Portland Youth Climate Strike activism training last fall is the winner of the “People & Pets” category. Adah is a youth climate organizer and recent high school graduate, who wrote in her entry, “To me, this photo highlights the joy and community found in climate organizing and the power of art in building resilience.”

The winner of the “Wildlife” category is Rena Olson’s photo of a Northern pygmy owl taken at Yakona Nature Preserve in South Beach. “I adore owls, and always feel blessed when I get to share space with them in nature. The importance of preserving and protecting our wild lands is truly felt when one is able to gaze into the eyes of one who calls those places home,” Rena wrote.

And the grand-prize winner is... Teri Smith’s photo of trail work volunteers tending to fire-impacted trees and the green meadows of Jefferson Park! Teri wrote with her entry that it “represents our ongoing challenges to deal with climate change, fire and human impact.”

Congratulations to all the winners! As the grand-prize winner, Teri's photo will be featured on the cover of OLCV’s 2023 Environmental Scorecard for the Oregon Legislature. It’s not published yet, but we’ll keep you posted so you can see how Oregon's lawmakers scored this year as soon as it's out.

Thank you for participating, and congratulations again to all the winners! Photos from this year's photo contest will be up on our Facebook page early next week, so find and tag yours.

Have a great weekend!
Jane Kwon
Communications Coordinator, OLCV