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Frozen in pictures

Winter Guide photo contest

Our inaugural Winter Guide photo contest has been a success. We had great response to our call for photos of winter in the Rochester area. Many of you dug through your collections and sent us snowdrifts and icicles, things buried in snow and things made of snow. (And one guy who looked like he might have gotten frostbite. We hope he's OK.)

Picking the winners was --- as it has to be with art --- a subjective decision. But a small panel of judges agreed on these five photos as the top of the heap, and thankfully it didn't come to blows. And most of them even grudgingly agreed, thanks to your artistic efforts, that winter can be quite pretty. They liked these for their composition, quality, and sense of place and season; we hope you like them, too.

Congratulations to the winners and thank you to everyone who opened their photo albums to us.

Frist place:Eric Anthony Sucar; Shawn Orlowski

Runners up:Gerry Szymanski; Sue Green "Into the Light"; Hoss Firooznia "Taughannock Falls."

In This Guide...

  • Winter Guide 2006

    City Newspaper breaks it down for you
    In this year's guide to the winter season, we've focused on things to do. Much like the government's odd, grammatical anti-obesity campaign ("VERB: It's what you do"), City wants you to get out and get moving.

  • Shelter from the storm

    Winter skills
    If you've lived in Rochester for any length of time, you've probably muttered nasty words under your breath about the weather. And during the five months we call "winter," one of those words was probably "arctic."

  • Play

    Spanking new year, same old story: we all peer outside from the warmth of our homes for a couple weeks and then, realizing that winter ain't going anywhere anytime soon, concede that if we want to stave off cabin fever, we're going to have to make with the bulky coats and really unattractive boots. So when you finally achieve acceptance (the final stage of grief), there are a number of activities you can participate in to make the cold-weather months tolerable, and possibly even enjoyable.

  • Hear

    Yup, it's DVD, CD, and fireplace weather for the next few months. But if you live alone, you might get a little lonely.

  • City's winter choices

    City's winter choice: dancing There are plenty of ways to raise your body temperature this winter and have some fun doing it (i.e. you don't have to use words like "cardio," "reps," or "ow") That's right, you should be dancing. Many local groups and venues offer dance nights in their genre of choice, often at low cost and with some sort of basic instruction.

  • Listen

    Hear that? Because so many local organizations and institutions go all out planning them for this slow time of year, winter is a great time to attend lectures.

  • Celebrate

    The heartiest and most enterprising souls among us realize winter can be not only a time of fun, but a time of tourism! Why not get the people out of their huts and into the open, they reason, if only for a brief while?

  • Applaud

    Here's an outline to plan your ticket-foraging with. Scatter a few of these evenings through the season like little culture outposts and absorb some of the talent --- both local and bussed in --- at hand this season.

  • Look

    After some brief holiday downtime, local galleries and museums are back in full force. So you have an array of culture to choose from, if you're into that kind of thing.