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If you haven’t realized it by now, you will discover today that the Roanoke-Chowan area is blessed with amazing photographers.

The proof behind that statement is a special publication inside today’s edition of the Gates County Index.

Roanoke-Chowan Publications presents its 2024 Photo Calendar. This marks the fifth consecutive year we’ve published a calendar, but what makes them different is the fact that all of the photos are taken and entered by local photographers.

A few months ago we began the annual search for photographs by asking local citizens to submit their best work. Those photos were required to have been taken of people, places, and things in any of the four counties that comprise the Roanoke-Chowan area (Bertie, Gates, Hertford and Northampton).

The response, as it has been since the first calendar was published in 2020, was overwhelming. For the 2024 Photo Calendar, 121 snapshots were submitted from local residents. However, it wasn’t about the quantity of submissions, but rather the quality of those photos.

From those entries, the staff of Roanoke-Chowan Publications was faced with the tough task of narrowing those photos to what we deemed as the “best of the best.” We debated long and hard on which photos to use. It’s not an easy task to narrow a list of 120-plus photos down to just the 15 needed to fill this calendar.

Additionally we selected one photo to grace the calendar’s cover. We whittled that list from five finalists, to three, to two, to one. And that “one” was a jaw dropping photo of a sunset over a soybean field in the Conway/Faisons Old Tavern area of Northampton County. Jenny Disney submitted that photo and earned herself a $250 cash prize.

“I do love to take photos, but I don’t do so as often as I would like,” Disney said. “For this [cover] photo, I was in my backyard and saw the sun setting over the field and thought to myself what a pretty picture that would be. I didn’t realize just how good the photo and the lighting were until after I got in the house and looked at it closely.”

Other local “shutterbugs” whose photos were selected for the calendar are Ronnie Woodard, Brittany Spiers, Brandy-jo Tinkham, Clyde Everette, Gloria Woodard, Grace Woodard, Wendy Burgess, Stephanie Benson, Bobby Pace, Larry Rose, and Sandra Nichols.

We hope you enjoy this calendar full of stunning local photography and keep it handy to use throughout 2024.