It is photo contest time again in Leaderland. We just kicked off our Holiday Lights contests.We want you to enter photographs of the best decked-out homes in the region. We will be giving $100 in gift certificates from local business sponsors to the winner.

New with this contest is our voting method.

We have received too many complaints about certain people doing a fantastic job of getting the vote out for their entries. Those good folks were just following direction to improve their chances of winning although I do agree that, sometimes, the most popular photo wasn’t technically the best shot. This time, the popular vote gets one vote and we will provide judges for the two other votes.

OK, excuse the cliche, but all that enter photographs are winners.

Just making the effort to bring holiday spirit to your neighborhood by decorating your home and then taking the time to post a photograph on our contest site deserves recognition.

Beyond the winning shot, we will print as many photographs as possible.

We will be printing a section featuring Holiday Lights photographs and letters to Santa on the Dec. 20 in the Argus and the Vigilant and on Dec. 24 in the Daily Star and Daily News.

The time should be right for us to be able to print twice as many color pages compared to what we can right now.

The third wave of press refurbishing is happening now. By Tuesday, we should be able to increase our color capacity for 8 to 16 pages.

Speaking of photo contests, look for 2012 the year in review in photographs to begin by the end of next week.

Once again, we will be soliciting your photographs that represent each month of the past year.

We especially would like to see pictures of you and your friends at region events and festivals or just enjoying our area.