Our annual photo calendar contest has made two things completely clear to us: We have a lot of talented amateur photographers in the area, and they love their subjects.

The 2010 contest started out gangbusters. We ended up with twice the entries we had last year — nearly 500 pictures made it in before the Wednesday deadline.

And many of you took our tips and advice and ran with them.

The variety and quality of photographs entered in the contest this year were substantially better than in the 2009 contest.

That’s saying something.

Last year’s contest entries were spectacular, but there seemed to be clear frontrunners for each month.

This year, there are plenty more options to choose from.

Take October, for example. The number of photographs that would look perfect in that month (Halloween, pumpkins, etc.) was overwhelming.

The competition is definitely stiff, which should make the finalists very happy about their accomplishments.

I’d like to share a little bit about how the process will work from this point on.

We are now narrowing photos into the finalist category. By Monday, we will have chosen the winners and sent out confirmation e-mails.

Hopefully soon after that we will get high-resolution photos and all the caption information we need.

Look for the announcement of winners in an upcoming edition, as well as photos from some of the other contenders. The first-place winner will receive $250 cash and their photo will appear on the cover of the calendar.

After all of the winners are selected, the calendar is put together and sent off to an off site printer. It will be distributed in the Oct. 30 paper. Extra copies, which make fantastic stocking stuffers, will be sold at The Tidewater News office on Armory Drive for $2 each until the end of the year.

Again, I can’t say enough about the quality and quantity of photo submissions. It’s going to be a tough job for us to choose the winners, but the result is going to be a top-notch product readers will be able to enjoy throughout the year. We’re proud of that, and we are proud of our readers for helping make it happen.