Well, unintentionally it would seem that I’ve taken the summer off from blogging. I guess that’s not necessarily a bad thing, since it’s given me a bit of a breather and saved any potential readers from drab drivel and prefab platitudes driven by the feeling that I need to publish something – anything – in order to keep people coming back.

Anyway, I thought I’d kick off a return to FNFF by hosting another PHOTO CONTEST. If you’ve never seen (or participated in) any of our competitions, have a look at our previous winners to get an idea of the quality entries we’ve seen in the past. Here are our very first winners, last summer’s finalists, and our Family Travel Photo winners.

These things are always a lot of fun to host, and here are the guidelines for our current competition:

• Our theme this time around is, appropriately, summer. We’re looking for photos that capture the quintessence of the season.
• Pictures may be of human subjects, landscapes, animals, plants, flowers, drag races, hot dog stands – whatever you think is emblematic of the season.
• Entries should be sent to mmtread@fieldnotesfromfatherhood.com. Send in as many shots as you like, but please be merciful.
• We will be choosing the top ten (or so, it’s hard to whittle it down) entries, and then the winner will be chosen by readers’ votes.
• Deadline for entries is September 20, 2014.

And that’s about it. To get you in the mood, here is a short selection of some of our own favorites from this summer. Get your entries in as early as you can, and best of luck to you all!