Gallery: FloydFest Instagram contest winners

As part of the FloydFest festivities last week, we held our first Instagram contest - asking festivalgoers to submit their photos via the popular photo and video sharing app.

There were two basic rules:

1. Follow our Instagram account: @roanoketimes

2. Tag the photo with the hashtags #floydfest and #roanoketimes.

Our panel of judges - Roanoke Times photographers Rebecca Barnett, Joel Hawksley, Stephanie Klein-Davis and summer photo intern Sam Owens - scrolled through more than 800 photos.

"It was tough," Barnett said. "There was a lot of debating and a bit of disagreeing as we tried to justify why our favorite photos should be top contenders."

In the end, Barnett said the judges based their decisions on visual appeal, composition, technical quality, subject matter and the difficulty of shooting the photo .

Here, we present the judges' top 15 - including the first-, second- and third-place winners.

"We enjoyed judging the contest ," Barnett said. "We loved getting the chance to experience what people saw and what they were drawn to photograph at FloydFest, and it also gave us a little insight to what the festival was like this year."

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