Photographers capture Macomb Township’s culture

MACOMB TOWNSHIP — Beauty can be found in everything; it just needs someone to capture it.

Over the winter and early spring of 2024, Macomb Township tasked residents with finding the beauty in their local community. Residents answered the call to join the township’s first-ever photo contest, and the final three winners were announced at the May 8 Board of Trustees meeting.

Justin Vollbach took the top prize with a photo of a creek near the Township Hall campus. Tyler Bucholtz and Brittney Reno rounded out the podium positions.

“It was actually a blizzard that day,” Vollbach said. “It was around 5 p.m. (in) early January. It was close to my home so I thought, ‘Let’s go out and have some fun.’ … The creek photo was one of the last photos I took.”

The idea for the contest came from Township Supervisor Frank Viviano as a way of developing a community culture.

“Over the last few years, we’ve been trying to identify what our culture is and what our character is for the community,” Viviano said. “We are a large bedroom community. We don’t have a lakefront, for example. We don’t have any large inland lakes like some communities have. Just in the course of discussing things like that, I thought it would be nice if we highlighted what natural beauty we have in the township, and the idea of getting a photo contest so we could collect some of that from the residents would be a good idea.”

Running the contest came down to Grace Lovins, township community relations liaison, who took the initial concept and paired it with the winter season.

“It took a little bit of planning because we wanted to do a theme or season, so we decided that after the new year picks up to do a winter-themed photo contest,” Lovins said. “We put together the rules and made a webpage for it on our website. The biggest part was pushing it on social media and getting it out there that we were doing something like this because it was our first time.”

Once the contest was closed to submissions, the Board of Trustees was tasked with whittling down the field of 40 to 10 finalists that residents would pick the ultimate winner from. Final polls were cast online at one vote per resident. Photos were able to be seen online or in person at the township hall, the recreation center and the North Branch of the Clinton-Macomb Public Library.

“We didn’t put any specific parameters on the board when they were examining which 10 were the best,” Viviano said. “There was a set of rules for submitting, but once the submissions were through and cleared, I told the board (to) pick the 10 photos you feel are the most appealing, the prettiest.”

Viviano believes the event was a success, both in its operation and in meeting the goals of building a Macomb Township cultural identity.

“The three finalist photos, they were beautiful,” Viviano said. “They were wonderful examples of what can be found right here in Macomb Township.”

Vollbach, too, believes the photo does a good job of representing the Macomb Township culture.

“As far as a geographical standpoint, (the creek) is a really nice place to just go and think if you ever just need to have some time alone to yourself,” Vollbach said. “We don’t live in a very mountainous area, specifically the Macomb Township area … Overall, I think I really nailed it.”

With the contest deemed a success, Viviano says the idea of further contests is under consideration.

“We haven’t finalized it yet, but we are thinking of maybe a fall contest, maybe followed up by a spring contest next year,” Viviano said. “We are going to keep casting the seasons and highlighting the beautiful aspects of our township.”

Vollbach, Bucholtz and Reno received gift cards from Testa Barrá Kitchen & Cocktails and now have their work on display at Township Hall.