Showing off ‘A Life Above’

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The City of Vestavia Hills has a new city hall – and some award-winning photographs of the city to go on its walls.

Photographer George Ritchey approached city manager Jeff Downes about organizing a photography contest, and “A Life Above” photo contest was born. Taking its name from the city’s motto, the contest drew over 70 submissions in three categories – professional, adult amateur, and student. Participants were tasked with capturing the beauty of Vestavia Hills from behind the lens, and a panel of judges – many of whom are professional photographers, including Ritchey – chose winners, runners-up and honorable mentions in each category.

The winners received cash prizes and their photographs were on display when city hall opened its doors.

Read below to meet the winner of each category and see their winning photograph.

Professional Winner – David Leong, “Pizitz Cheerleaders on Golf Course”

David Leong doesn’t normally enter photo contests. After hearing about the “A Life Above” photo contest, he had no plans to change this habit until he learned what the competition was really about – promoting Vestavia Hills, a city he has lived in for 20 years and a community he said he very much enjoys being a part of.

“I was just hoping for an honorable mention and was quite surprised to discover the photo won first place,” Leong said. “Any artist would be proud to have their work featured and appreciated, so I feel honored to have my photo displayed on the walls of our new City Hall.”

Leong emerged victorious in the professional category. A freelance photographer that has been shooting digital since 1998, he is studio-less – “unless you count my garage sans our minivan,” he said – but has been offered money to take photographs. After oscillating between entering the professional category or the adult amateur category, this fact, and advice from a colleague, pushed him to enter the former category.

“While I consider myself a freelance photographer, I enjoy other venues of photography, not excluding volunteering as the all-important class photographer for my kids,” Leong said.

One of Leong’s three kids – eighth-grader Rachel – appears on the far right of his photograph, entitled “Pizitz Cheerleaders on Golf Course.” The image – taken on June 15 of this year – captures four cheerleaders exuberantly jumping on the golf course of the Vestavia Hills Country Club. 

The four girls are all teammates on the eighth grade Louis Pizitz Middle School football/basketball cheerleading squad and were on the golf course taking photographs to use in their cheer sponsor posters.

“That particular image was quite spontaneous since all the girls love being silly,” Leong said.

The cheerleader on the far left, Emma, has her hair covering most of her face.

“I apologized to Emma about submitting a photo with her hair in her face, but she was thrilled,” he said.

The contest, Leong said, asked photographers to snap anything that the photographer felt captured the beauty of Vestavia Hills.

“Not diminishing the many beautiful scenic landscapes of Vestavia, I elected to feature our city’s best asset – its people, in particular, its youth,” he said. “The photo had vibrant colors, blue skies, green grass, and cheerleaders jumping for joy. How can you not feel good about Vestavia Hills?”

Adult Amateur Winner – Larry Durham, “Sibyl Temple in a Cloud of Hydrangeas” 

Larry Durham knows the exact date his winning photograph, “Sibyl Temple in a Cloud of Hydrangeas,” was taken – May 15, 2012.

“Aday.org asked people around the world to pick up their cameras to photograph daily life,” Durham said. “More than 100,000 images were submitted from 165 countries by both professional and amateur photographers.”

It came from an idea by a Swedish nonprofit called Expressions of Humankind, who then published a coffee table book filled with images from those 24 hours. Durham’s photograph didn’t make the cut.

He brought it out again for the “A Life Above” photo contest – and emerged the adult amateur winner.

This isn’t the first time one of Durham’s photographs has been lauded, though. Durham said that five years ago he developed an interest in competitive rose photography. 

“Since then, I have won 34 juried awards and have had 11 images of roses and gardens included in annual calendars of the American Rose Society,” he said.

Durham has been interested in photography since he was a boy and still has, with the exception of one, all of the cameras he has ever owned, dating back to when he was a child. He is now 74 years old.

He and his wife of 50 years, Anne, enjoy traveling and taking photographs together, “individually and collaboratively,” he said.

“Frequently, Anne will see the potential for a good photograph, point it out to me, and I’ll actually take the picture,” Durham said.

Though he said Anne is a better photographer than he is, it was only Durham shooting when his winning photograph was taken atop Shades Mountain along Highway 31. 

The photograph captures hydrangeas in the foreground and the Sybil Temple as the centerpiece. On his entry form, Durham explained the history of the temple.

“The Sybil Temple is a replica of the Temple of Sybil in Tivoli, Italy,” he wrote. “Built in 1929 as a garden gazebo at Vestavia, the Shades Mountain estate of former Birmingham mayor George Ward, it was moved to its current location in the mid-1970s by the Vestavia Hills Garden Club, which still maintains it with the help of the City of Vestavia Hills.”

Durham is a resident of Vestavia Hills and is a member of the Vestavia Hills Rotary Club and Vestavia Hills United Methodist Church. The Durhams have two grown children, both of whom also reside in Vestavia Hills with their spouses and children. All four of Durham’s grandchildren attend public schools in Vestavia Hills, he said.

A Navy veteran, Durham’s career was split between higher education, the nuclear power industry, and consulting. Photography has always been an interest – over the last 10 years, he said, he has benefited from photography classes at UAB, Samford, and the Botanical Gardens. He is also a member of the Shades Valley Camera Club, where he found out about the “A Life Above” photo contest.

“Had I not belonged to that group, I probably wouldn’t have even known about the contest,” he said.

Student Winner – Arjun Lakhampal, “Future of Vestavia Hills”

Arjun Lakhanpal said it was just a coincidence that his winning photograph, “Future of Vestavia Hills,” included six girls – and no boys.

“I did not intend to just have girls in the picture, but they were the first children that came to my mind when I decided to do this picture,” he said.

Four of the girls are Lakhanpal’s cousins, and the other two are a friend’s daughters, he said.

“I chose to capture the diverse population of Vestavia with these children,” Lakhanpal said. “By having the girls cross their arms together, I wanted to show the unity amongst this diverse group of kids.”

Lakhanpal, 16 and a junior at The Altamont School, has been taking photography lessons at school since fifth grade. 

“When I saw this competition advertised at the beginning of the summer, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to participate since school was out,” he said.

The photograph, taken at the Sybil Temple over the summer, shows six girls looking forward, metaphorically to the future. 

“I thought the Sybil Temple was the perfect place to take a picture, but I wanted to do something different because I knew there would be a lot of photographs of the temple, as it is an important part of the City of Vestavia,” Lakhanpal said.

He was right – two of the three winning photographs feature the temple. Even his sister, who also entered the competition, used the temple as her muse.

“My sister had already taken a photograph of the temple at night for the competition,” he said.

Lakhanpal enjoys photography and takes pictures regularly, he said. He has entered many competitions through his school.

“For one competition I got to go to Carnegie Hall in New York,” Lakhanpal said. “It was a great experience being in such a magnificent place.”

He credits his photography teacher at The Altamont School, Mrs. Hunter, for helping him develop his love for photography. 

“I have seen so much through a camera lens that I probably would not have seen otherwise,” he said.

Lakhanpal has been to India twice – the first time, he said, he was not taking photography and had no interest in visiting the sites. The next time he visited, it was a different story.

“At that time I was enrolled in photography at Altamont and I wanted to go see every possible ruin, palace, statue and monument not only during the day, but also at night just so I could take one more photograph,” he said.

In addition to photography, Lakhanpal is a sports lover – he both plays and coaches tennis, loves Auburn football and San Antonio Spurs basketball, and will watch any kind of sports, he said.

He was thrilled to learn that one of his photographs had netted him a victory.

“I was so excited to hear that I had won this Vestavia competition,” Lakhanpal said. “I think it will be really neat to have one of my photographs hung in the new City Hall.”