It appears to be contest season!
If you missed it, I am competing in the Birth Becomes Her contest - more info HERE
I did mention the Shoot & Share contest in my last blog post as well. Guys, it is SO. FUN.
When I chose to enter, it was about 12 hours AFTER the closing deadline...I am a severe last minute-er. Thankfully they extended the deadline slightly. This is my first year in the competition - said to be "the world’s only free & fair photo contest."
Photographers can enter up to 50 images, and there are 25 separate categories. Voters are shown 4 images per category, and you choose your favourite. The page refreshes, and on, and on and on....my goodness. I have spent SO much time voting, it is addicting!
The contest is completely anonymous. There are no watermarks, no link backs, you have no idea whose images you are voting on. Even the participants don't quite know how they're doing, until the very bitter end!
The reason I mentioned it in my last post - there was an extreme amount of backlash within birth photographer community. The Shoot & Share contest has always been touted as "family friendly," however the organizers used some very choice words to tell us what we can and cannot enter. Describing birth and breastfeeding as "grotesque." We were not okay with that! The birth community pushed back, and Shoot & Share relented! Breastfeeding images are now allowed, regardless of how much areola is visible!
Baby steps. They still recommend against excessive blood. But Rome wasn't built in a day.
If you have been voting, let me know if you spot one of my images! If you haven't been voting...what are you waiting for!? This is better than Instagram, folks!
*UPDATE* I have made it to Round 9! NINE!!!!! This contest started out with 412,379 and we are left with only 67,561 photos. This means that my image(s) are floating around somewhere in the top 16.3% of the 400,000+ images that were submitted! I won't have any idea which photo(s) are still in the contest until it closes...the wait is killing me! But in the meantime, I'm still having tons of fun voting. And I must say, voting is getting much harder each round, there is so much talent here, it's unbelievable <3
