January Photo Contest: Caught in the Moment

Truly excellent impromptu photographs take serious dedication. For every killer concert picture or funny party photo, there are five dozen closed-eye, off-angle shots. Yep, candid photography can be a tough business—which is why we’re using January’s photo contest to celebrate the times you got it right. Be it a quiet moment between lovers or Rallying to Restore Sanity, send us your best candid picture, and it could end up as a January finalist.

Here’s how the contest works: Submissions will be accepted until noon on Tuesday, January 25. Our judges will sift through the entries to find their five favorites, and reader votes ultimately determine the winning photo, which will be published in the March issue of The Washingtonian.

Photos—one per e-mail, please—should be sent to photocontest@washingtonian.com. Be sure to include the photographer’s name, phone number, e-mail address, and place of residence along with a sentence or two about the photo, where it was taken, and an explanation of why it fits the theme. You can submit as many photos as you’d like, but make sure each is 300 dpi and at least four by six inches. And remember, the photographer and the subject must be from the Washington area, which includes the Maryland and Virginia suburbs.

>> See a slide show of past winners

Our policy on photo rights: The photographer retains the copyright. However, because the photographer has submitted his or her photo to the contest, the magazine has the right to print the winning photograph in the current issue of the magazine and online as well as in any future issues as long as usage is related to the photo contest. The magazine also has the right to use submissions online in relation to the photo contest.

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Sarah Zlotnick

Sarah is the Editor-in-Chief of Washingtonian Bride & Groom, and writes about weddings, fashion, and shopping. Her work has also appeared in Refinery29, Bethesda Magazine, and Washington City Paper, among others. She is a Georgetown University graduate, lives in Columbia Heights, and you can find her on Instagram at @washbridegroom and @sarahzlot.