ShutterFest 2017 Image Competition

One of my favorite times of the year is at hand, ShutterFest! I look forward to this conference every year. Well every year since 2014 when the conference first started that is. In 2014, I jumped into the world of ShutterFest that first time and fell in love with the atmosphere and everything it offers. When I signed up to be notified of tickets going on sale, I never figured anything would come of it. I even hesitated to sign up when I got that notification. At that time, finances were super tight and $59 could cover the cost of a few different things. Yes attendees would get that money back (and we did) but that was a few months off still until that refund came. It was and still feels like a whirlwind of excitement and so much education. 2015 came and a few changes came size of the conference increased. I left 2015 feeling underwhelmed and defeated. You can read about that here. Time passed, I still loved ShutterFest and I worked through my issues and came ready to get my creative on in 2016 and even dragged my aspiring photographer cousin along with me. We had fun it was so nice to have that feeling of 2014 back, maybe it was being able to relive the excitement I felt in 2014 through my cousin in 2016. 2016 breathed a new creative side in me. I didn't attend the image competition judging this time around. If I learned anything in 2015 it was that I take critique to heart and internalize it and it takes me a while to work through it. A few weeks later the judging videos were available and in my free time I took to watching and looking for the critiques of my images submitted. Okay yup I went through the cycle of I'm no good why do I torture myself this way. But it was different this time around because that desire to improve kicked in faster. I was ready to hone my skills and be better at what I love. So here I sit going through my images from the past year trying to decide what I feel is competition worthy. Do I think I'll win top prize? Probably not but I do know that I am better than I was a year ago and I am positive my scores this time around will reflect that...