As an artist, sometimes it’s hard to tell what people think of your work.  There are things that you put your heart and soul into and put out there for the world to see, and you don’t hear so much as a peep so you wonder if people are connecting with your art or if it makes people feel anything.  Of course there are times when I hear people say “That’s Amazing!” but let’s face it, it’s usually my mom & dad who are most likely my biggest fans 🙂  Love you Mom, Love you Dad!

A few years back I had made a goal to enter a photo contest.  Now entering a contest sounds easy right?  Not much of a goal, but it still took me years to do.  I needed to find the right contest and I needed to find the right photo to enter.  So in December I see that the Shoot & Share Community that I am a part of is putting on a contest.  I thought, this is my chance, I can enter a few photos and just see what happens.  So That’s what I did, I didn’t know exactly how the whole thing worked so I didn’t really use all of the entries I could have, but still entered a few of my favorites.

So here’s how it worked: you’d open up a link to the contest and 4 random images from one of the categories would show up, you’d click on your favorite, they’d disappear and 4 more would pop up.  You couldn’t go search for a certain photo or photographer anywhere, you couldn’t even search for a certain category to vote on.  It was all random and the only control you had: what photo of the 4 was your favorite.  It was fun, it was inspiring, educational, and yes, it was totally addicting!  In the beginning, I got on in the late morning just to cast a few votes and then suddenly realize that I had been at it for way longer than I would like to admit.  So I learned that I needed to either set a time limit, or go on later in the day once I had already accomplished a few things 🙂  After a week or so, they would start to remove the bottom something% and the voting would continue!  Every time there was a cut, the next day I would vote until I saw one of my images and then do a happy dance!  I was still in the running!

So here are some pretty Amazing stats about the contest:

Photos Entered: 26,433

Number of Photographers:  1,660

Number of Votes:  5,737,602

Number of voters:  4,274

Yeah… that’s a lot of everything!

So here’s how things panned out for me.

 

These Made the Top 100 in their category:

 

 

 

 

These made the Top 20 in their Category:

19th in Trash the Dress Category

16th in Trash the Dress Category

15th in Trash the Dress Category

And this last one made the Top 5 coming in 4th Place in the Trash the Dress Category!

It was really exciting to be a part of this contest and such a great learning experience!  There were so many great photographers from around the world that really make an art of their work.  It is an honor to be among such great artists!  The top 10 winners in each category were published in the current issue of the Shoot & Share Magazine which is absolutely beautiful!

To have a little look inside, you can view it all HERE!  So sit back relax and soak in all the beauty!

We have the most amazing clients and supporters!  Thank you for all of the support you offer through calls, emails, “Likes”, and comments!  It is all very much appreciated!  You’re amazing so thank you very much!

~Malia