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Yes, it’s true.  It’s that time of the year again.

The holidays are past. The new year has come and gone. And now it’s time to look back. Reflect. Regret. Restart.

2016 was another landmark year for us over here at Making the Moment. After 11+ years in business you’d think we’d seen it all. Nope. 2016 proved us wrong. Our team has grown again [ we hired people – we may have also gotten taller or fatter or what-not ], traveled to the deserts of Vegas, won a few print competition awards, we got hit on some more, got hit on not enough, won a Fearless Award, slipped on hills, twisted ankles, broke stuff, lost stuff, found stuff.

cleveland photographers // Making the MomentWe laughed ’til we cried, baked in the sun during the Cavs championship parade, cheered on the Indians during the playoffs, survived walking the salt flats of Utah barefoot, pushed through hypothermia and the blazin sun, took a crap-ton of pictures, saved a kitten from a fire, edited a crap-ton of pictures, and found some time in between to make brides, grooms, families and our commercial partners super fabulous looking.  The Olde Official Tally sits at 74,519 images.  All unique, different, and amazing.  We expect no less from 2017.

Looking Back; 2016 at a Glance

Here’s where we spent most of our time;

SHENANIGANS

28%

BEING WEDDING CREEPERS PHOTOGRAPHERS

36%

CRIME FIGHTING

20%

CRIME CAUSIN'

18%

MAKING HTML BAR GRAPHS CUZ THEY SO COOL'

76%

Sometimes the best way of moving forward is by looking back and remembering. Therefore, we proudly announce our annual “Image of the Year Competition” for images that were crafted last year [ 2016 ].  This year the competition will be fierce, with over a million thousand dollars worth of prizes for our clients!

Image of the Year LogoWe nominated images from eligible Weddings, Engagement Sessions, Family Imaging Sessions, Senior Imaging Sessions, LiveBooths, and Commercial Shoots, as entries in this year’s competition.

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Image of the Year Grand Prize

Valued at over $1000 bucks, this is worth fighting for *

  • 24×36″ Metal Wall Art Print with B.A. (bad-ass) Metal Stud Post Hangers. Yes – complete awesomeness.
  • $250 gift card to the Making the Moment Photography print lab
  • Our team will re-enact your favorite movie scene to the best of our terrible ability and share the result **
  • Limited-Edition, one-of-a-kind award crafted from a strange mix of play-doh and paper mache
Image of the Year Runner-Up

Pretty good stuff still happens here for our second place winner

  • $179.18 gift card to the Making the Moment Photography print lab
  • One [ 1 ] bottle of Brett’s Bald Beautiful Balm – An innovative product from our very own Brett***
  • A poorly Photoshopped photo of our staff poorly Photoshopping a photo from Photoshop
  • A paperclip actually used by Renee to hold paper together against other pieces of paper
Image of the Year Almost Winner (3rd Place)

Amazing awesomeness still happens here for our third place winner

  • $50 gift card to the Making the Moment Photography print lab
  • [ 1 ] Over-the-phone serenading of “My Heart Will Go On” performed by Marcus
  • Amber will give a strangely long awkward hug to the person of your choice
  • Sara will arrive at a pre-designated destination to laugh at your friends for no apparent reason

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How Does this All work?

There are two [ 2 ] rounds of voting;

Round 1 begins on Monday January 16th, 2017 [ the moment the Round 1 photo album is posted on our Facebook. ] Voting for Round 1 will take place there, and end at 11:59pm EST Wednesday the 18th. The Top 15 will make it to Round 2.

Round 2 will begin on Thursday the 19th as soon as the Round 2 blog post is up on the blog, and end at 1:00pm EST on Friday the 20th.  Voting for Round 2 will change it up a bit – so stay tuned for details.

Winners will be announced before the end of the day Friday. This is a lightning round. Act. Fast.

How Do We Vote in Round 1?

Once the photo album is up on our Facebook with all of the eligible entrants, you can begin voting.

  • Step 1: Like our Facebook page – you have to do this for your votes to count
  • Step 2: Like the image = 1 vote
  • Step 3: Comment on the image = 1 vote
  • Step 4: Share the image = 1 vote IMPORTANT: Only likes, comments and shares on the image itself will count. When sharing, Facebook friends need to click on the image to vote on it. Likes and comments on wall posts of the image will not count.

This means each person can vote up to 3x on an image [ liking + commenting + sharing ].

Round Two Voting

After the first round of voting, 15 “Finalist” images will be chosen based on popular voting from round one. The vote count for these 15 images will start with an even playing field [ all votes reset to zero ], and voting will change up a bit [ stay tuned for the details! ]

It is important to know that the images will be displayed in the order of popularity via votes from the first round though, so winning big in Round 1 does have an impact in Round 2.

Round 2 voting will begin Thursday the 19th around lunch and end Friday the 20th at 1:00pm EST.

When Will Winners be Announced?

On or before Friday January 20th @ 6:30 PM EST, we will announce the top three Images of the year!

How Can I Get Lots o’ Votes?

Simple! tell your friends.  Tell everyone!  The more likes, the better chances you have of your image winning the competition!
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Miscellaneous Official Rule List

Participants in this year’s competition have the following rules to abide by.  Please give them a brief read.  We also have tips scattered throughout on how you can bribe our judges.****

  • “Likes” on each individual photo in the “2016 Image of the Year” album on Making the Moment’s official fan page count as a vote, but only by official fans of Making the Moment Photogrpahy on Facebook
  • Comments on each individual photo in the “2016 Image of the Year” album on Making the Moment’s official fan page count as a bonus vote, but only by official fans of Making the Moment Photogrpahy on Facebook
  • Sharing the image to your Facebook page will also count as a bonus vote. While your Facebook friends can comment and like your shared post, votes will only count if the action [ like / comment / share ] is done to the image itself that is shared from our page [ usually “clicking” the image itself within the post will be enough to ensure that the user is liking / commenting / sharing the actual image from our Facebook page] Only comments and likes on the image itself will count. Comments and likes will not count on your wall post. Facebook won’t link the likes / comments to the official image on our page if the action is only done to your wall post itself, and not on the actual image. Only votes cast and shown on the actual image on our page will actually be tallied, as they are the only ones we actually have the ability to count and track.
  • Votes by snail mail, email, phone, knocks on the door, inbox messages, prank calls, cookie delivery, and any other method besides facebook, do not count. We’ll take flowers though….
  • Bribing judges is permitted, but only by personally dropping off our favorite beers to the office
  • Although some entrants have multiple images in round 1 (perhaps a couple had us photograph both their wedding and an engagement session), each client / couple may only have one image proceed to the final round of voting.
  • Bribes will not however affect final outcome.  They are still of course accepted and encouraged
  • People may vote on as many photos as they’d like
  • Generally speaking our favorite beers are Belgian or Trappist ales
  • The commissioner of the image (ergo the actual “Client” of Making the Moment) is the actual prize winner, not necessarily the subject of the image
  • All Awards/Prizes/Credits must be claimed within 30 Days of issuance, or are considered forfeited
  • Award credits and prizes hold no actual cash value
  • This time of year we also like porters and stouts
  • Employees or contractors of Making the Moment LLC are not permitted to vote or “like” any images in the contest. Comments are permitted though, but will not count towards the vote totals.
  • If the right beers are hard for you to find, we encourage you to just drop off hundred dollar bills
  • No hundred dollar bills?  That’s fine – just bourbon.  Lots and lot’s of bourbon.
  • Nominated images from the event are selected exclusively by Making the Moment Photography staff. Clients who took advantage of our LiveBooth services may have one additional entry. All nominees are final
  • Nominated peeps – please don’t complain about the image we chose and how much another image “shows my good side better” image should be picked.  We do our very best to pick images unbiasedly that we think really have a shot and stand out from the rest – it takes quite a bit of time for our staff to narrow it down to the best – so please trust us 🙂
  • Final winners and vote tallies are up to the discretion of Making the Moment Photography
  • At any time if the client who commissioned the image wishes the image to be removed from the contest, the image will be removed from the contest and no longer eligible for any prize winnings
  • At any time if a subject of the image (or legal-guardian thereof) wishes the image they are being shown to be removed from the contest, the image will be removed from the contest and the image and it’s respective client will no longer be eligible for any prize winnings
  • Only fully purchased, captured images in 2016 are eligible for this contest (Photographic sessions ineligible for entry are sessions where digital files or home usage rights were not purchased)
  • Making the Moment can for any reason remove or prevent an image or a contestant from the competition for any reason what-so-ever.
  • Users who wish to vote, but who are without a facebook account are still eligible for the contest by creating a free facebook account

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Fairly Serious Legal Mumbo-Jumbo
  • Comment votes containing profanity, violence, hate speech will be removed and not counted towards the vote tally to the given photograph
  • Making the Moment Photography may at any time cancel the contest, alter or adjust the rules at any given time
  • This contest is void where prohibited by law. The contestants assume the total responsibility of knowing their local laws in regard to contests and are subject to any local, state, national or international laws. Making the Moment LLC accepts no responsibility for making these individual legal determinations.
  • Making the Moment LLC reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to disqualify any individual it finds, in its sole discretion, to be tampering with the entry process or the operation of the Contest or the Website; to be in violation of the User Agreement of the Website; to be acting in violation of these Official Rules; to be acting in a unethical or disruptive manner, or with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass any other person, as determined by Making the Moment LLC at its sole discretion.
  • Any use of cartel, robotic, automatic, macro, programmed or like entry methods will void all such entries by such methods and persons using any such methods will be disqualified.
  • If for any reason this Contest is not capable of being conducted as planned due to infection by computer virus, bugs, tampering, unauthorized intervention, fraud, technical failures, or any other causes which, in the sole opinion of Making the Moment LLC, corrupt or affect the administration, security, fairness, integrity, or proper conduct of this Contest, Making the Moment LLC reserves the right to cancel, terminate, modify or suspend the Contest. If the Contest is terminated due to tampering or technical difficulties prior to its expiration date, notice will be posted on Making the Moment LLC’s website at http://www.MakingTheMoment.com/.
  • As a condition of participating in this Contest, you agree that any and all disputes which cannot be resolved between the parties, claims and causes of action arising out of or connected with this Contest, or any prizes awarded, or the determination of the Winner shall be resolved individually, without resort to any form of class action exclusively by arbitration pursuant to the commercial arbitration rules of the American Arbitration Association, then effective. Further, in any such dispute, under no circumstances will you be permitted to obtain awards for, and you hereby waive all rights to claim punitive, incidental or consequential damages, or any other damages, including attorneys’ fees, other than your actual out-of- pocket expenses (i.e., costs associated with entering this Contest), and you further waive all rights to have damages multiplied or increased. All issues and questions concerning the construction, validity, interpretation and enforceability of these Official Rules, or your rights and obligations Making the Moment LLC’s rights and obligations in connection with this Contest, shall be governed by, and construed in accordance with, the laws of the State of Ohio, U.S.A. in the County of Cuyahoga, without giving effect to the conflict of laws rules thereof, and you agree to the jurisdiction and venue of the federal, state and local courts for Westlake, Ohio for any disputes relating to the Contest or these Official Rules.

* Do not hit, bite or otherwise hurt other contestants
** Scarface preferred.  Christopher Walken to be praised.  No Frozen.  No My Little Pony.  K, maybe….
*** Bald head required for use
**** In all seriousness, you know we can’t be bought.  The voting is completely up to facebook anwyays.  Still – feel free to stop by with the above mentioned goodness.
*****There’s not even a 5th star…..sucka…

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