Amador County – Jackson sign-maker Kam Merzlak of Merzlak Signs was named in the top three of a recent KCRA Channel 3 “U-Local” photography contest.

Merzlak said he appeared on the channel’s 8 a.m. program Monday as a “finalist in their U-Local photo contest. They have had 50,000 entries and I have made it to the final three.” Merzlak said his picture, “Yosemite Winter,” was one of 21 photographs he entered, and was among 50,000 uploaded during the long-promoted contest.

He said it was also one of the later entries, as his girlfriend, Kellee Davenport, urged him to enter. After entering the photos, he was later notified that he was among 1,600 finalists. Then, he received an e-mail from a producer saying he was in the top six. Then came a phone call from a producer, and he was in the top 3, and went to the selection show, with Dierdre Fitzpatrick as the anchor.

Merzlak said they told them “all three of us were going to be considered winners,” although his was the first photo discussed. Merzlak stood in front of a flat-screen where they had his picture displayed, and Fitzpatrick asked him what he thought of the photo.

Merzlak said the key element to landscape photography is the composition, and he moved the elements of it around a lot. He said he looks at the foreground first and arranges different objects, or layers, and that’s “what actually draws you to the picture.” He said this particular photo, of El Capitan in Yosemite, “has about eight layers of subject from front to back.”

Fitzpatrick asked what inspires him as a photographer. Merzlak said that would be his father, Ralph, who was an internationally published photographer who died five years ago. He said lately he has been traveling to the same Sierra Nevada locations as his father did, on photography excursions.

It came after a photographic trip with Gavin Myers and Elanor Caputo in December 2009. The storm was just clearing and they had used four-wheel drive to get in. The sun was setting, and “in the last ten minutes of the lighting the clouds came in.”

In 36 years of going to Yosemite, he said that trip had the best winter time photography conditions he had seen in a long time.

The other two finalists were a professional wedding photographer, who took a picture of a lightning storm over Folsom Lake; and a lady who took a photo of her daughter.

Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.