a little healthy competition...with myself

The yearly Shoot & Share global competition is about to come to a close and it got me thinking. Backstory: for those who don't know what this contest is, it's a global contest that any and all photographers can enter up to 50 images of their work. A month long voting process ensues amongst your peers of photographers. This year, there were over 400,000 images entered in 25 different categories and over 120 countries have voted! It's kind of a big deal.

Last year, I was honored to have been a finalist, making it to the top 3.5% of the contest entries. This year, as we await the results, I was thinking about how amazing it is to have all this inspiration from other photographers and lust over their work. But. You know that saying, comparison is the thief of joy? It can get pretty tricky maintaining your confidence when you are seeing jaw-dropping images. It's easy to quickly doubt yourself and your work. So on that note, I wanted to remind myself that my biggest competition, is myself. I'm always striving to do better than the last year so I wanted to take a look back at my journey as a little self reminder of how far I've come as a photographer and show, through pictures, that I am now the photographer that my former self always wanted to be. There is always room for growth and learning, but a little check in to remind ourselves how freaking amazing we are is good too! Enjoy a look back and let's collectively thank these amazing first clients of mine for loving me back then.