On Facebook I am part of honestly entirely too many photography groups, more than I would like to admit. However, those photography groups are so integral to my growth as not only a photographer but also a business owner. One of those world-wide groups is called “Shoot & Share”. It’s a group for photographers whose business model is based off of the shoot & share model – basically, I take your photos and then share those edited digital files with you for you to use at your own pace vs the other model of only selling you prints and canvases.

Every year, the Shoot & Share group admins host a photography contest.

I’ve only entered one other photography contest in my life, and honestly I didn’t enter it myself. My photography teacher in high school entered my photo. Surprisingly it won and was selected to sit in the County Courthouse for a year. I was shocked. But I mean I was also only going up against maybe 200 other photos. Well this year, I decided to enter the Shoot & Share contest! I figured, it’s free. While I’m not going to win or place anywhere it could still be a neat experience and hey it never hurt anyone to try. However,  knowing that it is a WORLD-WIDE photography contest where thousands of incredible photographers were submitting 40 some shots – I knew winning was a long shot.

The way this contest works is a little different than most contests. This one is not voted on by a team of judges. Instead this one is voted on by your peers. Anyone in the world could log on to the website and vote. You would be presented with 4 photos from a category – for example the ring category. You would then click on your favorite photo out of those 4 shots you’ve been presented with. Then the page would change and four more photos would pop up. It was completely random. There were 12 rounds that took place over a couple weeks. After each round if a photo hadn’t been clicked on a certain number of times, it was removed and the next round would begin. Slowly decreasing the amount of photos in each category until it got down to only 100 in each.

For statistic and numbers purposes…

73,883 people entered photos

23,154,356 votes were cast

110,928 photos were submitted to the contest

There were 21 categories (Bride & Groom, Rings, Families, Engagement, Wedding Details, Just the Bride, Just the Groom, Bridal Party, Real Moment, Newborn…just to name the few I can remember) Each photo was judged and placed within it’s category. Each category had a different number of photos entered into it.

I would vote almost everyday in hopes that at some point I would see one of my pictures. It wasn’t until the 13th round that I finally saw one! A round that wasn’t even part of the contest. At this point the official, prize winning contest had closed. But everyone missed voting so much they brought back the “Best of the Best” where all top 100 shots from each category were entered to be voted on to discover who the ultimate winner was. Not going to lie, it was SUPER EXCITING to see one of my shots! Exciting enough to take a shot of it with my phone haha…

(ignore the terrible phone quality of a computer screen)

But there it is –the one with the doggie.

 Well sure enough, that doggie shot did a lot better than I thought I would have ever done in this contest!!

Can’t believe that 5 of my photos earned badges! Meaning they got enough votes to be ranked in the top somethings!!!!

You might remember this photo of Zeke from Heidi & Rob’s Engagement Shoot. This photo was my top placing photo! It placed in 78th place, which put it in the Top 100 in it’s category (Rings). A total of 3,170 images were submitted to this category alone.

This shot was taken at my Aunt & Uncle’s wedding, that I was lucky enough to be asked to document. You can see their blog post here. I placed the rings in one of my Grammy’s plants on her front step haha. This photo placed 134th out of 3,170 in the ring category.

The two shots below were taken at Lisa & Tim’s wedding. I think its kinda crazy that three of the five shots that placed are of Lisa & Tim. I mean I’m not surprised, they’re beautiful and incredible models!!

But anyways, the below shot of Lisa & Tim placed in 2,678th place out of 13,701 images submitted to the Bride & Groom category! That might not be a win to most people but I for sure think that’s a win!! At least in my book it is 🙂

This shot of Lisa placed 1,098 out of 6,498 in the Bride category. This placement got her through 9 out of the 12 rounds.

This shot of Lisa, Tim & Colton was taken during Lisa & Tim’s engagement photos. You might remember their blog post – you can find it here. This shot placed 1,727th place out of 6,486 images submitted to the family category. Still one of my favorite family shots to date.

The two screen shots below are from my contest profile. You can see all the amazing photos I submitted of you incredible, awe-inspiring clients of mine! Thank you so much for asking me to be apart of such important moments and times in your lives and for being such stellar models! I couldn’t have participated in this contest without you–I mean literally I couldn’t! So thank you so much, these awards, while small, are just as much yours as they are mine!

If you’re interested in seeing more details of the actual contest, the official website can be found here.