An Award-Winning Photo

I never enter contests.  Never.  Partly because I’m scared or intimidated and partly because I’m just too plain lazy to sift through the thousands of photos I’ve taken to pick out the ONE I think would even have a chance at winning.  But when I did Estella’s one year pictures, I knew that girl deserved to be in a magazine.  Not only was she amazingly photogenic for a one-year old, but her style (or should I say her parents’ style) just fit with the whole shoot.  From the old chair, to our location, to the beautiful setting sun, everything was perfectly vintage and sweet.  So when I took this photo, I immediately felt, looking at it through my lens, that it belonged in a magazine.  Not because of my talent (although, yes, I had to compose, edit, etc this photo – which takes work and years of training!), but because she is just so darn cute and full of joy! So of course, when I found a contest, I entered her photo.

Ok, so skip ahead to December, and I find out not only did my photo win the Baby Category for the New Beginnings Photo Contest, but it won the GRAND PRIZE!! Can you believe it?  I certainly can’t! I mean, never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I could actually win a photo contest – there are thousands of amazing photographers out there, and many entered this contest, and the judges picked MY photo!  So now, this photo is going to be IN a magazine – just as I dreamed it should be!  Thank you, Me Ra Koh, for sponsoring this contest and allowing me to put myself out there!  You can check out her blog post with the winners here.  So I guess now I need to start booking some flights, huh? 🙂