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This week we celebrated Dr. Seuss’ birthday. I’ve always been a big Dr. Seuss fan. I mean, how do you NOT like Dr. Seuss?! He taught us to use our imagination, and to be different. He showed us the world he created in his mind through his books. Dr. Seuss was rejected by 27 publishing agencies before getting a YES. 27! And many of them told him that his work would never make it. Do you know how hard it is to put your work out there? It’s hard guys! Let alone, having someone bash you and tell you that your work would never make it. That would be crushing to some. But not to the good ol’ doc! He persevered and thank goodness he did because now we have his stories that are living on generation to generation. Dr. Seuss’s story is so inspiring to me. I have been faced with many obstacles to get where I am today. There are still days that I feel like giving up, but I press on because I know that every good fight is worth the battle.
I am a creative. I live to create things in all mediums. I even created my own army of little people (although my 13 year old is now taller than me.) I love sharing my art with all of you and I love getting feedback too! However, its really really scary to put yourself out there. I think about so many different things before I press the “post” button every.single.time. But you know what? I keep doing it! Because I LOVE creating that beautiful art for my clients. It truly satisfies my soul when I get texts from my clients gushing about their gallery followed by 10 emoji hearts. I live for those texts! I wish y’all could see the smile it puts on my face every time. Because of this encouraging texts and messages from my happy clients, I decided to enter into the Shoot and Share Photo Contest this year. I hadn’t entered any work since I was in college at GCC ahem…6 years ago. I had taken a little break from photography for a few years to focus on my health. I’ve been back in the game for a little over 2 years now, so I thought I would give it a shot. I decided on the last day you could enter, that I was going to go for it. At 10pm. With a midnight deadline.Ha! The maximum number of photos you could enter was 50. So I thought I’d go through and get some photos for different categories that I wanted to enter and re-crop/re-edit a few to perfection and see how many I could get through in the 2 hour time frame. I was able to enter 30 images. In hindsight, I wish I had decided to enter sooner and entered all 50, but there’s always next year 😉 For those that don’t know, the contest is completely anonymous. No one knows who you are voting for and there are no names or watermarks listed on the images.
As the competition started, I found myself voting for photos every free moment I had. Waiting to pick my daughter up at dance, gotta vote. Waiting for the kids to finish their breakfast and getting ready in the morning before school, gotta vote. Laying in bed trying to fall asleep, gotta vote. You get the idea. My Mom, husband, and I all sat in the same room on a couple occasions, voting. But the entire time, I never saw one of my images! I would check my photos daily and noticed my favorites number kept rising as the days went on. I would get excited every time I saw it. With each round of the contest, I knew I had made it, because that number kept climbing. Over the last few days, I noticed that number had stopped climbing. I thought I was out of the contest….until yesterday. I received an email that I was a FINALIST!!!! WHAT! At least one of my photos made it to the top 3.5% of ALL photos in the contest! I did it! To create is to breathe for me. Thank you for letting me create my art for you. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for me this year.
