FINAL WEEK OF FOTO FEST 2000 COMES TO CLOSE

Janice Meyr of Jackson, Mo., takes her camera nearly everywhere but especially on family outings.

Meyr's photograph of her uncle, Helmer Stueve, sitting inside the doorway of an abandoned barn was selected this week as one of four semifinalists in the Foto Fest 2000 contest.

"We do a lot of outdoor things and I always take my camera," she said. It's paid off since three of her photographs taken during family outings were recognized during the weeks of the photography contest.

Foto Fest 2000, an amateur photography contest, is sponsored by the Southeast Missourian and Westfield Shoppingtown West Park. Other contest sponsors are St. Francis Medical Center, Southeast Missouri Hospital, Mac's Smokehouse, Schnuck's and the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport.

The final week of the contest collected the most entries -- 250 photographs. Overall the contest saw 1,200 entries, which broke records from previous contests, said Joyce Hunter, marketing director at Westfield Shoppingtown.

Six winners will be selected from the semifinalists chosen throughout the contest. Those winners will be announced next week.

Meyr said the picture was taken on a family hike around Thanksgiving. She and her family were visiting a deserted farmstead that her mother and Stueve's wife, who are sisters, had often visited as children.

Meyr's uncle "was just sitting in the barn," she said, and his "expression just caught me. I loved the picture there. We had such an enjoyable afternoon."

Judges said, "It reminds me of my grandpa" and that "the face of a gentleman shows a story untold."

Other winners were Kerry Kimmel of Perryville, Mo., Susan Tansil of Cape Girardeau and Robin Wiegand of Jackson, Mo.

Kimmel's photograph shows sunlight filtering through a clouded sky at sunrise. The light is reflected on Resurrection Bay nestled between mountain slopes in Seward, Alaska.

Kimmel said the photograph was taken on July 4 during a visit there.

One judge said the "coloring and time of day in which this photograph was taken made it outstanding." Another said it was "mysterious."

Susan Tansil of Cape Girardeau captured a black and white silhouette of David Stahr, also of Cape Girardeau. Tansil captured the photograph in a glass walkway near Rockefeller Center in New York City, where she is a student.

One judge thought he was "in serious thought," while another said the picture looked like "it should be in a high-quality book."

Tansil liked the photograph because of its lighting and that you can see "water flowing in the back."

Robin Wiegand of Jackson, Mo., captured a surreal atmosphere with her photograph of a sailboat amid the waters in Gulf Shores, Ala. One judge wrote that "the texture of the sails against the clouds gives the sailboat a majestic quality."

The photograph was taken at sunset from a boat Wiegand was aboard while on vacation. She liked "the way the sunlight hits it," and decided to enter the contest.

It was the only photograph she entered in the contest.