DTLB Unfiltered is an annual photography contest during Arts Month (October) designed to capture the ever-changing landscape of Downtown Long Beach. This contest is a collaboration between the DLBA and the Arts Council for Long Beach.

In my role at DLBA I have helped to facilitate this contest by: preparing the landing page, setting up the contest through Woobox, promoting the contest, answering inquiries from entrants, filtering through submissions, hosting the judging panel, printing & framing the finalists’ photos, and organizing the gallery reception—and this was just in my first 2-4 months on the job!

Our 2019 Unfiltered landing page had over 5K views and received over 260 submissions. In 2018 the landing page had approximately 2K views and received around 240 submissions. While our submission rate was not significantly higher than the previous year, you can definitely see the results of our promotions.

Unfortunately, we had to postpone our 2020 contest and have just begun the process of resuming in 2021. More details to come once the contest starts on October 29.