Publications and Contests! {Utah Family Photographer}

This year I have made it a goal of mine to enter contests and submit images for publication whenever possible. You never reach your goals unless you actually try for them, right? Luckily there's very little actual rejection involved in these submissions, as you just pretty much never hear back if you aren't selected. So I usually submit and then forget about it. There are a few ways I have submitted work, and I have had so many successes in such a short time, I feel completely honored.

First, this next image, which I wrote about earlier as being a Click Pro Daily of the Week winner, was also selected to be featured in Click Magazine! I did not submit it, but I did post it on the Daily Project where they often select images for publication. This was my very first published image as a photographer, and I may have cried some tears. I am so happy it was in Click, because Clickin Moms has been such a huge part of my journey as a photographer.

Next, I submitted some work to the Dear Photographer black and white issue, and I actually had one selected for publication! YAY! Of course it is a self portrait, so that is extra scary and exciting, I guess?! It was one I was a little self-conscious to even post on Instagram at the beginning, but it has gotten a lot of attention. Another reason to put yourself out there!

I was accepted in the National Association of Professional Child Photographers a fe months ago, but  I wasn't quite sure what to do with that membership. I thought I'd start with a contest. So I entered the photos below in the "Color" and "Water" categories.

And today I got an email that said I was in the top 100 images! I didn't know which of my images had been selected, so I tried to see a list of finalists or whatever, and finally found this collage:

If you look at that collage 3 rows above the title bar in the middle, you will see BOTH of my images!! If they hadn't been so close together, I never would have seen them both! CRAZY! So, it's a pretty slim chance that either of these images will actually win, but it's so nice to be a finalist! This is a gallery event, so although I won't actually go to Atlanta to see my images in the contest, they will be printed and put in the gallery and I'll eventually get the prints back. So that's fun! 

So, I just wanted to share some of that fun news! I have LOTS of blogs planned and on my list of to-dos every single day that I ignore. An in-home family session, an outdoor family session in their beautiful yard, a bringing home baby session, and lots and lots of personal session, especially on FILM!! I'm so excited about film, and I can't wait to start offering it to clients as well. There's such a classic and timeless look to film. I'm going to do my next baby session on film, and we will see how it turns out! Stay tuned!