Thank you, everyone, for the hundreds of fantastic  images submitted in the orb photo contest.
Our most popular blog of 2011 was of the winning images in our Orb Photo Contest!

Please enjoy these images once again! We’ll be back on Monday, January 9 with new blogs to share.

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We were looking for a photo of happy orbs, preferably with people or plants present, to serve as a cover for Atala’s upcoming book on photographing nature spirits.

The publishers did not find a photo strong enough, in their opinion, to represent the book as its cover. They ultimately chose a photo of a tree spirit.

We have included several of your images in our text, as illustrations of various principles discussed. The text is going through the editing process now, and if any of the images make the final cut, we will be sure to let you know!

Shown below are the winners we selected! Congratulations everyone!

First Place~Honey Metcalf lives in South Oregon and began taking pictures of orbs “after witnessing an unusual phenomenon here on my property in 2005.”  On a trip to Mt. Shasta, Honey and her sister Micki took turns taking photographs of each other calling in the faeries to come play with them! Quite a community came on out! Honey tells us she has a collection of several thousand images of orbs.

Second Place – SeaHeart Elan lives on the West Coast and took this happy photograph at the annual Fairy and Human Relations Congress, held each year in Washington state.  The young girls and the orbs are clearly having a great time playing with each other! SeaHeart tells us she has thousands of images of orbs!

Third Place – Kristen Putzer, Illinois took this photograph of her young son Joshua on a recent outing to a local preserve. Her son was in a very happy mood, she tells us. He was describing a nature spirit he was playing with, and was greeting it; clearly, the nature spirit was greeting him back. The shape – a round ball with arms or wings extending out – is one of the more unusual orb shapes people capture in camera. This is one of Kristen’s first orb photographs, and she tells us she was quite surprised to see Jason’s “pretend” friend had been caught on camera!

Honorable Mention – Melanie Joyce is caretaker of the very special Bluff Trail Labyrinth in Wisconsin and has taken thousands of orb photos of all shapes, sizes and colors. This photo was selected because it shows an unusual image – a collection of orbs who have gathered together to form an etheric branch! The labyrinth itself is flat: that branched form in the center exists only in the orb dimension!

Honorable Mention – Al Ochsner, Illinois. Al took this photograph at a gathering where many of the attendees were focusing on taking photographs of orbs. He was not having much success, so we suggested he identify with the frequency used by a young girl in the group to get her many orb images. After a minute or so of adjusting his frequency to hers, he began photographing – and produced this amazing image: an entire wall of orbs traveling into his space, to find out what was happening!

Honorable mention – Barbara Kaufmann. This is a photograph Barbara took, she tells us, “At a seminary among iconic sculptures and images.” Very often we’ve seen images of “holy statues” of various faiths who have a lot of orbs around them; the orbs appear to be connected somehow to the process of petitioning and receiving back messages from the statue’s representative energy.

Commendation – Melanie Joyce, Wisconsin. An entire bush of orbs is pouring out towards the photographer!

Commendation - Melanie Joyce, Illinois – A full moon ceremony had just taken place on the Bluff Trail Labyrinth, and the orb beings were moving about very fast. When you consider how long a camera lens is open for such a shot, it’s clear the orbs were zooming about at super speed! Nascar should see such speeds!

Commendation – SeaHeart Elan – A wonderful picture of adults, children and fairies playing together at dusk – the most active time for human/fairy interaction, the time known as the space between the worlds!