Daniel and I have been talking about doing a photo contest from nearly the first meeting we ever had to discuss the direction we wanted for Eat Arkansas. Unfortunately, life gets in the way sometimes, and it took until this spring before we were able to launch our first one. The response was, in a word, humbling, as folks from all over the state sent in some really gorgeous pictures of food they’d eaten in restaurants or cooked themselves. Food photography is a huge part of food blogging — I’d go so far as to say that without my wife Jess, who takes most of my pictures, there I never would have amounted to much in the food blog world.

Before we get to our contest finalists, I’d like to give a special thanks to South on Main and Loblolly Creamery, who provided the prizes this time around. I reached out to several local businesses for possible prize donations, and once again, was humbled by the response: your local chefs and artisans really love you, Little Rock. I’ve actually collected enough prizes for at least two more contests, so if you didn’t get a picture in the finals this time, or if your finalist doesn’t win, we’ll be doing another one of these at the end of April with a Hillcrest Artisan Meats theme.

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Here’s how the voting works: I’ll upload these pictures to the Eat Arkansas Facebook page in a gallery called “2014 Spring Photo Contest.” To vote, log into your Facebook account and “like” the picture you want to win. Because this voting is utterly unscientific, I suppose you can “like” more than one picture, although I’d prefer it if everyone just “liked” their favorite. On Thursday, March 20, we will tally all the “likes” from each picture and announce a winner, who will receive two South on Main coffee mugs and two $5 Loblolly gift cards. So without further ado, here are your finalists, in no particular order. Get to voting!

*Andra Smith — Root Cafe Salad

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*Laurie David — Family Crawfish Boil

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*Kristie Jones — Root Cafe Toasted Curry Chicken Salad


*Daniel J. Roda — Waffle Time in the City

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*Steve Shuler — Filet with Corn


*Georgia Pellegrini — South on Main Chicken Liver Mousse Plate

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