Jasper County creating photo contest for admin building murals

To give guests and employees something more interesting to look at inside the new administration building, the Jasper County Board of Supervisors June 29 decided to establish a committee to organize a photo contest in which the winning image or images will be blown up and placed on vacant interior walls.

Jasper County Supervisors Brandon Talsma said rather than using some kind of stock photo of cornfields or other stereotypical Iowa images from the internet, a photo contest might be more interesting. Talsma said a committee could come up with guidelines for the contest and select the winner.

“Kind of laying out the criteria of what that contest is, what we’d be looking for and stuff like that. And then kind of formalizing that process going forward,” Talsma said. “Personally, I think it would be kind of cool to see what kind of pictures we’d get from the public of Jasper County.”

The administration building — which will be under construction in a few months at the former NewCare clinic — has about four vacant walls for murals.

Talsma said he spoke with professional photographer Amy Doerring and believes she would be a good fit on the committee, along with representatives from the auditor’s office and the IT office. One of the three county supervisors would also be placed on the committee. Talsma volunteered.

Doug Cupples, chair of the Jasper County Board of Supervisors, indicated he would serve as an alternate if Talsma could not make it to a meeting. Talsma hoped the committee would meet sometime this week to formalize the contest criteria, which would approved at the July 6 supervisors meeting.

“We can get it posted and start making the public aware and hopefully start getting some pictures for the (mural) art that will be in the new building.”

Doerring told Newton News, “I love the idea of letting local people share what they find beautiful in our county, and then taking that outside beauty and bringing it inside.”

Photos would be required to be at least 8x15 and minimum resolution of 300 dpi. More details will be released next week.

Contact Christopher Braunschweig at 641-792-3121 ext. 6560 or cbraunschweig@newtondailynews.com