A single frame of a single real-time moment can tell a whole story, a photography judge told teens, encouraging even more to enter a thriving local competition. The Jefferson County Library’s third annual teen photography contest yielded a surge of participation, with 29 photographers younger than 18 submitting 78 photographs, a sharp increase from last year’s nine photographers submitting 18 photographs. Teen services librarian Russ Stamp thanked four local professional photographers - Adam Stockton, Jen Lee, Melissa Jentzsch and Rick York - with winnowing down this pool to a top-three selection, plus a “people’s choice” winner. “It was so hard for them, because all the photos were so beautiful that no two judges picked the same entry for first place,” Stamp said. “Between all four judges, we had nine different photographers in their top five selections.” Stamp praised the young photographers for demonstrating “the guts” to put themselves “out there” by submitting their work, especially since artwork, unlike athletic competitions, has such subjective standards. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” Stamp said. “If a piece of art can transport you to a time or place that are meaningful to you, then it is invaluable.” Eryn Grace’s photo of a cat running its paw through motes of dust captured in a sunbeam was selected by library patrons as the people’s choice, a category suggested by last year’s patrons. Macy Aumock took third place for a head-and-shoulders photo of a girl laying down on the grass. “One of our themes this year was composition, and she managed to fill most of the frame with the subject’s hair,” Stamp said. Grace Wentzel took second place for her abstract photo of a town’s skyline reflected in what appears to be water on the ground. “It’s worth noting that, when I first displayed this, she told me I’d hung it upside down,” Stamp said. “You don’t know quite where it’s from just by looking at it.” And Anna Munn received first place for a photo of a girl kissing a horse. Although none of the winners attended the May 23 reception at the Jefferson County Library, Stamp provided a quote from judge Jen Lee, who proclaimed the art and medium of photography to be “incredibly special,” as it deals “with real time, real events, real people, real places and real things” in its images. “We can write an entire story in one single frame of film, and there’s magic in that, Lee said. “So keep photographing the world around you, and sharing stories, one frame at a time.”