This year I decided to participate in an International Portrait competition called Shoot and Share (the only free and fair competition as their slogan says) where Professional and Amateur Photographer’s all over the world enter their portraits in various categories and the public votes on what portraits they like the best. As a newborn, maternity and baby photographer in Kingston, Ontario, I think it’s important to always be striving to get better at my craft not only to serve my clients better in my Kingston studio and the surround areas but to also help keep my portraits fresh and innovative and this competition took me out of my comfort zone to see how I fair’d next to other photographers from around the world. I’m happy to say I was awarded with quite a few Top 10%, Top 20%, and Top 30% placements in the competition, but more on that later!
When you are voting on your desktop, iPad or mobile phone the program (which is a wonderful piece of programming if you ask my web developer husband) shows 4 random portraits from one specific category and you tap which image you think is the best out of the four. Now photographer’s and non-photographer’s will obviously have different criteria for determining which image they think is the best out of the four. A photographer will likely look at composition, lighting, editing, and other such elements that experts believe make the best technical image. A non-photographer will most often then not look at an image and vote for which image evokes the most emotion out of them whether that is a tearful reaction or a joyous one.
When I went through the voting process (which to be honest I banked 30+ hours on because it is addicting!) I would look at the technical aspects but if it “Sparked Joy” (thanks Marie Kondo for convincing me to throw out anything that doesn’t spark joy in my life! #MarieKondoForever) then it got my vote whether it was technically perfect or not. If an image made a viewer stop and drop their jaw they had the opportunity to pick their jaw up off the floor and favourite (push the heart) on it and it would be saved to your favourites folder. I was feeling pretty joyous and shared the love over 1000 times! I’m looking forward to going back to my favourites to gain inspiration but also to find out who the photographer was that entered it and learn more about their art! This contest really opens your eyes to trying new poses, lighting techniques and finding inspiration in your day to day life to capture.
Each Photographer could enter up to 50 Images into the contest. This was my first time entering the contest so as you can imagine I have a lot of images from years past that I could have entered. I decided to pick a mix of new and old images to see how the whole contest worked. The categories that I could have chosen from were:
- Maternity
- Birth
- Newborn
- Babies / Toddlers
- Kids
- Family
- Teens/Seniors
- Lifestyle / Documentary
- People Portraits
- Engagement/Couples
- Ceremony/Reception
- The Bride
- The Groom
- Wedding Couple
- Wedding Details
- The Wedding Party
- Styled Wedding / Fashion
- Travel/Landscape
- Creative Projects
- That Just Happened
- Emotion/Excitement
- Passion Portraits
- Pets/ Animals
- Phone Photography
- Share Joy
So many to choose from as you can see – I would have a hard time choosing which images to enter. There were descriptions of what should be included in which category and some up for interpretation. For example you could enter an in home lifestyle newborn portrait session in either the newborn category or the lifestyle/documentary category.
I just have to tell you that the amount of images entered was staggering! The contest began with 583,150 photos entered! Let that sink in for a minute! There were voters from over 144 countries around the world weighing in, over 90 million votes in less than a month with over 2 million hearts given! Hearts were super amazing to receive by the way as it let you know you had at least one image still in the contest as each of the 12 rounds of voting happened because otherwise you couldn’t see your results until the contest was over! So hearts were trickling in for me until the end of day in round 11. The images were seen at least 40 times in each round so that the algorithm could properly determine who had the most votes and then those images would continue on to the next round when all images had been voted on at least 40 times (I believe this number jumped to around 80 in round 12 – a bit more complicated then I’m letting on here).
So if you were voting for one image which would you choose. So hard right? By the end i would see 4 images in a voting round that I had already ‘hearted’ in a previous round so how do you pick your favourite out of your favourites?!! It’s was hard but just an amazing experience to be a part of!
These were the portraits that did the best for me in the #ShootandShareCompetition and I’m so proud of not only how well they did but also for entering the competition. I was nervous to go up against the world but realized that no matter how I placed my clients loved their portraits and that is what really counts above any competition I may enter. It does give me inspiration to strive for excellence and to think outside of the box on how I approach taking each portrait.
On a side note it has been incredible to hear the stories behind the top placed portraits as well as hear of highschool students entering images and having them be in the top percentages as well as it is open to anyone in the world that wants to enter.
Pretty incredible that 18 out of 50 Images were in the top 30% of all images entered in their categories!
Made it to the end of Round 11 – Placed 837 out of 39,479 entered in the Newborn category. More specifically this image was in the top 2.2% in this category.
Made it to the end of Round 10 – Placed 1,371 out of 26,188 entered in the Maternity category. More specifically this image was in the top 5.2% in this category.
Made it to the end of Round 9 – Placed 4,653 out of 52,642 entered in the Kids category. More specifically this image was in the top 8.8% in this category.
Made it to the end of Round 11 – Placed 572 out of 26,188 entered in the Maternity category. More specifically this image was in the top 2.18% in this category.
Made it to the end of Round 9 – Placed 2,867 out of 15,926 entered in the Styled Wedding/Fashion category (could have also placed it in the People Category). More specifically this image was in the top 18% in this category.
Made it to the end of Round 9 – Placed 4,191 out of 39,479 entered in the Newborn category. More specifically this image was in the top 10.6% in this category.
Made it to the end of Round 8 – Placed 6,399 out of 41,321 entered in the Babies/Toddlers category. More specifically this image was in the top 15.48% in this category.
Made it to the end of Round 9 – Placed 4,835- out of 26,188 entered in the Maternity category. More specifically this image was in the top 18.46% in this category.
Made it to the end of Round 9 – Placed 3,716 out of 26,188 entered in the Maternity category. More specifically this image was in the top 14.18% in this category.
Made it to the end of Round 8 – Placed 7,344 out of 52,642 entered in the Kids category. More specifically this image was in the top 13.95% in this category.
Made it to the end of Round 8 – Placed 7,235 out of 39,479 entered in the Newborn category. More specifically this image was in the top 18.3% in this category.
Made it to the end of Round 8 – Placed 8,808 out of 39,136 entered in the Teens/Seniors category. More specifically this image was in the top 22.5% in this category.
Made it to the end of Round 7 – Placed 10,508 out of 39,479 entered in the Newborn category. More specifically this image was in the top 26.6% in this category.
Made it to the end of Round 8 – Placed 2,852 out of 10,613 entered in the Emotion/Excitement category. More specifically this image was in the top 26.87% in this category.
Made it to the end of Round 7 – Placed 10,269 out of 39,479 entered in the Newborn category. More specifically this image was in the top 26% in this category.
Made it to the end of Round 8 – Placed 9,199 out of 41,321 entered in the Babies/Toddlers category. More specifically this image was in the top 22.26% in this category.
Made it to the end of Round 7 – Placed 13,537 out of 52,642 entered in the Kids category. More specifically this image was in the top 25.7% in this category.
Made it to the end of Round 8 – Placed 8,146 out of 39,479 entered in the Newborn category. More specifically this image was in the top 20.6% in this category.
I’m amazed and humbled and just wanted to share the excitement with all of you! I’m looking forward to entering the competition next year (with great family portraits too!) and if you would like to join the competition or see the top placed portraits please head over to www.shootandshare.com It’s free to participate and the inspiration gained is priceless.
#ShootandShare #CanadianNewbornPhotographer #PhotographyAwards
