Picture perfect

The local newspaper announced the winners of their annual photo contest and I am very proud that out of 6000 entries, my wife was given honorable mention. Nice job Angela!

They’ve run this contest for a few years now, and we generally enter it without much success. The whole process is sort of odd to me. It really points out how subjective photography is. Some of the “winners” I really don’t like as much as some of the honorable mention or the others that had been shown as weekly winners during the 4 weeks of the contest. I really like landscape photography myself, but, obviously, that’s not a field that is going to win these sorts of contests, because it’s so hard to standout among hundreds of landscape photos that are submitted.

It also shows me one of the reasons that, despite suggestions I’ve gotten from friends and coworkers, I don’t want to do photography for money. It’s a lot like the reasons I don’t want to bring money into the equation on this blog. I take photos for me. I enjoy the process, I enjoy learning and challenging myself to be better, I enjoy the end results and I enjoy sharing them with others who get some enjoyment out of them. If I was getting paid, I’d have to spend time worrying about what the person paying me wanted to see, and whether I could provide them photos that made them happy, and as we’ve seen, what I like may not be what you like at all! It’s pressure that I’d have to think long and hard about before accepting. Mostly, I just enjoy taken pictures, like I enjoy writing. If other people like the end results, great. If not, no harm done.

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