HAMILTON - Megan Gleeson got home late one night and found an unusual white flower sprouting out of some weeds in the mulch at the top of her driveway.

The beauty of the white flower in the night caught the 10-year-old's eye, so she took a picture of it.

"I just really thought it was really pretty," she said.

The picture, poetically named "The Pearl That Shone Out of the Darkness," earned her third place in the "Around Hamilton and Wenham" category in the Hamilton-Wenham Library's Child Photography Contest.

Twenty child photographers in grades one through six submitted their pictures to be judged by a panel of three, Jean Buckley and Toni Carolina of Hamilton and Wendell Waters of Ipswich. The pictures represented one of three categories - "Around Hamilton and Wenham," "Music," and "Family and Pets" - with prizes awarded in two groups, grades one to three and four to six.

Carolina, a professional photographer for 20 years, gave the children a one-hour photography class before the contest.

Children's Librarian Lorraine Der organized the contest and helped ensure certificates and awards were given out to everyone. A photo album and a gift certificate from the Sweetest Thing was given to first-place winners, second-place winners received disposable digital cameras, and third-place winners received four tickets to a North Shore Spirit game. Honorable mentions received a hardcover book of their choice.

When Wenham's Max Martin, 7, was called by the library to tell him he'd won third place in the music category for his picture of a plastic goose on a piano, the first thing he did was high-five his dad.

"I really was excited," he said.

"I've done this (contest) for three years now, and I'm always amazed," said Buckley, who's also a professional artist and is in charge of collecting all of the artwork that goes up in the library.

She said the children bring a fascinating purity to the pictures they take, like catching a child jumping on a trampoline, and having the creative eye to see the back of a woman's head in a convertible with her hair flowing in the wind.

"These are very unusual things for a child to notice and really pick up," she said. "I think (they bring) a very fresh eye.

"They do these things instinctively. That's what makes these pictures so interesting - it's the freshness they bring to them."

Alex MacLean, 9, said his picture, "The First-Ever Animal Band," "just came to me."

In his picture, he gave stuffed animals makeshift instruments, like drumsticks made out of wooden ladles and a microphone made out of a flashlight with aluminum foil over it.

"Seeing the enthusiasm for what we do (as photographers), it just makes your day," Carolina said. "And sometimes just getting on that level with the children, it just helps you to rediscover why you do it, just the excitement.

"If I can teach one child to love this, that's all I'm interested in."

Jennifer Frain of Hamilton, the mother of Sophie, a third-grader, and Kayla, a fourth-grader, said to her children, "It's taught you to be sort of explorers."

They nodded in agreement.

Kayla, who won first place for her photo of a bird's nest hidden in a bush, "Hidden Treasure," said she learned "to bring your camera wherever you go" because you never know what you're going to find.