It’s the first week of our month-long photo contest to win a Gorillapod tripod, and we’ve got some great photos for you to vote for! This week, we have photos from Rooted photographers Cassandra Adamson and Peter Gaunt, along with some submitted photos from John Stebbins. Thanks for coming to vote this week and don’t forget to read past the photos if you want to find out how you can get a chance to win this month’s prize.

First, Cassandra’s shots:

Photo 1: A woman only identifying herself as Peace Washington advocates for the Tea Party during a conservative rally in front of the Capitol on the 82nd opening of the state legislature Tuesday.

Photo 2: Conservative Texans and members of the Tea Party listen to Apostle Claver T. Kamau-Imani of the conservative racial diversity organization Raging Elephants while he quotes scripture to justify his point that liberalism is wrong.

Photo 3: Anika Utter continues to play on an artistic glasses-and-moustache teeter-totter constructed in front of El Chilito taqueria on Manor Road after her father Marc is ready to head home.

That’s all for Cassandra’s shots, now on to Peter’s:

Photo 4: A bicycle hangs on the side of a home along Chicon Street on the east side of Austin.

Photo 5: James Stewart rolls a cigarette in the rain along S. First street. He has been on the streets since 1998.

Photo 6: Cold January rain doesn’t stop road workers on the job through the weekend on Saturday afternoon.

That’s all for Peter, now on to our submitted photos from John Stebbins:

Photo 7: A high dynamic range photo brings out the detail of the sign for Little City Espresso Bar & Café on Congress.

Photo 8: The repetition of stairs makes for an interesting photo. Thanks for sending in the photos John! If you like his work, then check out more at his site.

That’s all for this week’s photos, so choose wisely! Here’s a reminder about the contest we’re running: Winning photographers will be placed into a drawing for a prize (more on that later). There are two ways to get entries. The first is by having the winning photo of the week, which gets you two entries into the drawing. You can also get a single entry in the drawing if your photo gets more than 15 votes during the contest week. So, if you get 20 votes for a photo one week and your photo has the most votes overall, you’ll get a total of three entries into the contest.

There are some rules. The photos have to be from around Austin, which means either in Austin or the outlying area. Photos should be submitted to photo@rootedaustin.com in JPEG format and at least 1,000 pixels wide. Photographers can send in multiple pictures, but only one of them can get an entry into the drawing by passing the 15-vote threshold. For example, if you send us three pictures and each one gets 15 or more votes, you get one entry. If you win, you will always get two entries. In the case of a tie, the Rooted team will vote to break it. As for the voting, it can be done either here on the blog, on Facebook or via Twitter. Voters can vote once per method per week. After four week-long contests, we’ll tally up the entries and put them into a hat. Whoever we pick wins the prize!

Speaking of the prize, let’s talk about what you can win in this contest. This time, we’re giving away a Gorillapod SLR-Zoom tripod. What is that, you ask? Let us show you:

As you can see, the Gorillapod is an awesome tripod that can do a lot more than your typical set-up. Put it on a mountain, wrap it around a tree or anywhere else where your normal tripod won’t go. This little guy can hold more than six pounds of weight safely, so you won’t have to worry about anything happening to your camera. It’s a great tool to put in your photography toolbox.

So what are you waiting for? Send us your photos at photo@rootedaustin.com for a chance to win!