Real Florida Magazine Photo Contest

‘Real Florida Magazine’ has captured the lifestyle, culture, heritage and natural offerings of Northwest Florida in photo and video for over 15 years, and has set the standard for photographic excellence in the region. Based in Chipley, Florida, and owned by parent company The Goulding Agency, the bimonthly print publication recently celebrated their fourth anniversary, and has announced some changes in the delivery of their product.

Taking in excess of 350,000 photos each year, staff from the periodical attend festivals, parades, special events, political gatherings, social and fraternal events and other events of note, capturing images. The print and online versions of the magazine, as well as the website, have drawn attention to the region, and have encouraged national publications such as Women’s Day and Southern Living to chronicle unique local events such as the Possum Festival and Watermelon Festival.

‘Our social media user base has grown, much to our delight’, says firm owner Debbie Goulding, ‘and with over 35,000 unique Facebook viewers, as well as a loyal YouTube and YouPic fan base, that attention serves to spur us on to even greater things’. ‘This year we will be making some significant changes to our print magazine’, Goulding continues, ‘and enhancements to the offering include a facelift to the format along with a supplemental online version and a photographic contest’.

Our firm employs part-time photographers when necessary, especially at those times of the year when there are multiple festivals, parades and football games occurring at the same time, and from that comradery and healthy competition spawned the idea for the photo competition.

‘Most people don’t realize that commercial and industrial photography is a grind’, says Goulding, ‘requiring concentration, lots of hours and the ability to make quick decisions and take a lot of consistently high-quality photos’.

The last photography contest hosted by the magazine received many quality entries, and Goulding hopes that this competition will be even better.

Photographs will be submitted in three categories: people, events and business, and the competition is judged on creativity and photographic quality, with three places awarded in each category.

Winning entries will be published in a special online edition of the magazine and will appear in the print version of the magazine as well as on Facebook and website.