For the last few years, there has been a photo contest that I’ve really wanted to enter, the Shoot and Share Photo Contest. Since I’ve never entered my work into a contest before, I was super nervous. It’s hard not to compare your work to another photographer, especially when you see such great work on a daily basis from all over the world. I kept getting emails and seeing posts on social media about the contest coming up and so I decided to bite the bullet and just do it.

Each photographer could upload up to 50 photos into 25 categories. I did just that. It took me almost a whole week to decide on that 50 that would represent KC Photography. It was so hard to choose but when I hit the button to submit the images I was proud of what I had decided on.

During the voting, which lasted a few weeks, 4 images were shown at a time in a certain category. You would then click your favorite out of the 4 images and then the page would reload and you’d have another 4 images. You never knew who you were voting for (unless you knew the work from following your favorite photographer). The only way a photographer knew if their work was still in the contest if If you still saw your images while voting. I think I spent way too many hours voting. If I told you an estimate on how long I voted you would all think I’m nuts LOL.

The contest ended and I was proud to say that a lot of my photos made it to at least the top 30% of the photos submitted. I’ll link to the Shoot and Share website here so you can see the winners but I’ll post some stats below. I’ve had a lot of people asking me how I did and time got away from me and I totally forgot to post an update on it.

I think what I’m most proud of, out of all this, is that I went into this confidently and actually submitted my work. I’m my worst critic and some days I feel like I’m fading into the saturated crowd of photographers. But I’m happy to say I had 3 images made it to the finals and I couldn’t be happier.

So here are the stats…

• 74,000 Photographers
• 225,207 Photos Submitted
• 32,622,327 Contest Votes
• 149 Countries Involved

My personal stats…

• Finalists – 3 Images
• Top 10% – 2 Images
• Top 20% – 9 Images
• Top 30% – 7 Images

I had 21 out of my 50 images make it to top 30% or higher…which is just crazy!!!! Not sure how that happened with all the amazing photos I voted for but I’m so humbled and honored. Here are the top 3 images that made it to the finals.

This photo is from Curt and Dana’s engagement session. It was 152nd place out of 21,049 photos.

This was a family photo taken this past December. It made 310th place out of 13,283 photos.

This was another photo from that family session and it was posted in the children category. It made 145th place out of 10,267 photos.

Thank you all who voted for me and thank you all for supporting me. I truly love what I do and I cannot wait till next year when the voting starts up for 2017!