Every year, I participate in the Shoot and Share photo contest!! It’s completely free, completely fair, and SO much dang fun!! It’s always amazing to me that there are so many amazing photographers in our world, and I love being able to see so many of their work all in one place! If you have read about the Shoot and Share contest in the past from me, here’s a little break down.

Shoot and Share Photo Contest

Every year, Shoot and Share (a community for photographers) puts together a photo contest. You are free to submit up to 50 images into the pot from the prior year (the contest is in January) to see how it fairs with your peers photos. It can be kind of a daunting task to pick out your favorites, and what photos you think will do the best in the contest! There are, I think, 25 different categories from “That just happened” which is on of my favorites, to wedding details-another fave.  It takes time, and a little bit of effort, but with some smart thinking, and a few clicks of a mouse, you are ALL IN! And then you wait for voting to begin.

This year, there were 332,768 photos submitted. THAT’S INSANE. Depending on how many photos are submitted, there are “rounds” where photos are eliminated until you get to finals. Voting is pretty simple too! You are taken to the voting page where you see four different photos from one category. Then comes the hard part. You have to choose the image that you love most.

Once you get into to final rounds, picking your favorite photo can be TOUGH!! I know there’s time when I want to pick all four, but luckily, you are able to “favorite” your images. If there’s a photo that you absolutely love, and want to learn more about after the contest is over, you can favorite the image, and see them all in place! I love that part!!

There is one problem when it come to voting though. It’s so dang addicting. Just the other night, I jumped on when I was in bed for the night just to vote “for a few minutes.” Before I knew it, it had been 30 minutes, and it was way past my bed time. It’s so inspiring to get to see so many beautiful images all in a short amount of time! But it’s also SO much fun. There’s always that chance that you’ll get to see your own image too! When it does happen, you want to jump up and down and squeal a little, even more so when it’s the later rounds of the contest. 🙂

Voting for this year is still happening, and I feel like the results can’t come soon enough. This year, more so than years past, I was nervous to enter. This year was a tough year for me when it came to that nasty comparison monster. He’s a big ol’ jerk. I wondered if my images weren’t good enough. I wondered if I was going to “make it” at all. But the more I looked through my image from the year, I couldn’t help but be overwhelmed with gratitude. Gratitude towards the couples that had faith in me to document their wedding day, that had love for my talent as much as I, and the promise that I get to do this another year. Regardless how I do this year, I’ll continue to remember that what I get to do for others is amazing. I get to preserve their memories not just for them, but for their posterity as well.

I am super excited to see how I fared this year in the contest, but I’m more excited to see my improvement from last year. I love that as photographers, we can continue to improve and develop our skills and talents. I don’t think any of us have ever really “made it.” There’s always room for improvement and growth, and I can’t wait to see what happens for me in 2017.

Like I mentioned, voting is open! And you can check out the contest here! Be cautious though if you have things you need to accomplish during the day. 😛 Check it out, and keep your eyes out for my blog about the results next month!!

You can see last years results post here!