Last year I stumbled upon this photo website called Pixoto. It’s a site where anyone can submit photos. Users, which can be other photographers or people simply visiting the site, will rank your photos. The way they do it is pretty neat – Pixoto will display just one of your photos at a time and place it side by side another randomly chosen photo that has been submitted. The user then simply clicks on the photo that they like better. Simple.
It starts off basic and as your photos are chosen (or not chosen) they will receive an “imagescore”. Your photos are then ranked next to photos with similar imagescores. This helps your photo steadily and what seems to be fairly, settle into its “proper” rank.
Like I said, I discovered this site last year and I used it pretty extensively for a short while to test it out. I’m glad I did because it helped me see which photos “perform the best” a.k.a. which photos of mine are “most popular”.
IAwards
I always feel funny about contests of any sort. They're hard for me because I always wrestle with the "Is it worth it question?" Contests can take up a lot of time and money and you might not get anything to show for it - it's a gamble everytime. But I'm relieved to say that I think the Premium Cards Photo Contest was worth it!
Out of 142 photographers who entered the contest I was picked to be in the top 12 by PremiumCards.net. After that, the voting was opened up to the public so they could vote for their favorite photographer.
With this particular contest the top 3 photographers with the most votes won. When the contest first opened up I did a little sharing on Facebook and Twitter and quickly secured the 3rd place position which was good enough for me. But then near the close of the contest there was another photographer who was right on my heels with votes and he overtook me, bumping me out of the winners' circle! So I kicked it into high gear and toldAwards, Contests
For the past two years I had the privilege of photographing my friend and her lovely puppy, "Belle". We held these photoshoots usually at a nearby park in the fall so we can get capture those beautiful autumn colors!
My friend occasionally frequents "Doggie Luv Bakery", a local pet bakery shop that specializes in making their own wholesome dog treats! They also have all sorts of gifts for your dog and for your fellow dog lovers! Doggie Luv Bakery recently anncounced that they were looking for photos of pets to feature on their treat bags. My friend heard about the contest and submitted a few of my photos from our photoshoot and they chose the one below!
It was featured for an entire month and I must say it was nice to have my photo chosen to be the feature photo! I'm super glad that my friend heard about this contest and submitted photos on my behalf - that was awesome! It's always great to have some local publicity & to help a local business!
Awards, Pet Photoshoots, Photoshoots
I'm happy, glad & proud to say that one of my photos (the photo shown here to the right) has been accepted into the National Geographic Stock Photo Library!
I was able to enter this photo through the "National Geographic Your Shot" program. The great thing is, anyone can enter this! The basics of it is this: You can enter one photo a month and that photo is judged via Nat Geo. They will then pick one or two photos to be printed in the magazine and any number of photos to be published online. Read the "Your Shot Rules" for more details.
If your photo is accepted into the National Geographic Stock Library, is then available to any editors of National Geographic, that's another opportunity for your photo to be in a Nat Geo magazine one day! If other editors from other magazines who have access to this library choose this photo then you'll even get a little kickback.
The great thing about this process is because national geographic forces youNational Geographic, Awards
