"Space Invaders" (September 2024)
The Natural Landscape Photography Awards just sent around its email notifying participants about which photographs made it to the 3rd round. I was thrilled to find out that I had 7 entries advance this year. Over the 5 years of the contest this number has steadily improved for me from 1 the first two years, to 4 in year three, to 6 last year. I had been managing my expectations this year, because I thought 6 was a bit of an outlier and would be a high number to match. When I got the email I was a bit shocked. I was very surprised. I was pumped the first year when just one of my photos made it, so I really can't believe 7 made it this year.
Looking at the selections, I have noticed two trends. First, I am not very good at forecasting which photos will fare well in the contest. I wrote about this last year and the trend has continued to develop. For three years in a row, the last photo I submitted advanced to the judging round. And in the past two years, the last two photos both made it to the next round. These are photos that were very much on the bubble and I easily could have opted to not submit. By comparison, only once has my number one choice advanced. It goes to show you how these things are very much subjective. I don't even know which of my own photos are "good." (I failed to include this photo here, which was one of the seven that advanced in the contest, in my initial set of top forty 2024 summer photos.) So while it is nice to get some external validation and see my photos score highly, I must remind myself that beauty is very much in the eye of the beholder.
Second, local photographs of familiar subjects did very well this year. Of the seven photos that advanced, three were of lily pads and two were of ferns. Anyone who has spent a minute looking at my photos knows that those are two of my favorite subjects. And five of the seven photos that advanced were made within a half hour of my home at spots that I visit regularly. So while it's a small sample size, it appears that practice and repetition paid off last year.
"Space Invaders" (September 2024)
The Natural Landscape Photography Awards just sent around its email notifying participants about which photographs made it to the 3rd round. I was thrilled to find out that I had 7 entries advance this year. Over the 5 years of the contest this number has steadily improved for me from 1 the first two years, to 4 in year three, to 6 last year. I had been managing my expectations this year, because I thought 6 was a bit of an outlier and would be a high number to match. When I got the email I was a bit shocked. I was very surprised. I was pumped the first year when just one of my photos made it, so I really can't believe 7 made it this year.
Looking at the selections, I have noticed two trends. First, I am not very good at forecasting which photos will fare well in the contest. I wrote about this last year and the trend has continued to develop. For three years in a row, the last photo I submitted advanced to the judging round. And in the past two years, the last two photos both made it to the next round. These are photos that were very much on the bubble and I easily could have opted to not submit. By comparison, only once has my number one choice advanced. It goes to show you how these things are very much subjective. I don't even know which of my own photos are "good." (I failed to include this photo here, which was one of the seven that advanced in the contest, in my initial set of top forty 2024 summer photos.) So while it is nice to get some external validation and see my photos score highly, I must remind myself that beauty is very much in the eye of the beholder.
Second, local photographs of familiar subjects did very well this year. Of the seven photos that advanced, three were of lily pads and two were of ferns. Anyone who has spent a minute looking at my photos knows that those are two of my favorite subjects. And five of the seven photos that advanced were made within a half hour of my home at spots that I visit regularly. So while it's a small sample size, it appears that practice and repetition paid off last year.