Shoot and Share Contest Results | Artistic Denver Wedding Photography

Once a year, every Denver wedding photographer – and ALL photographers worldwide for that matter – take a giant hit in their productivity.

Sometimes, they lose hours of their days and nights. They become obsessed, sucked into a photography contest.

It’s awful. But also fun.

Here’s how it works: Over 400,000 photos submitted are broken up into about 15 categories. Within those categories, photos are split up into groups of four. You choose your favorite out of the four, and the next four are instantly generated. When you’re a Denver wedding photographer, it gets HIGHLY addictive.

You can submit up to 50 photos. OUT OF OVER 400,000. Thus begins the hunt for the needle in the haystack. And the end of your productive life as you know it. Vote after vote, you hope to find one of your images. And you never may.

This madness goes on for months – from the moment you submit to the moment you get your results. Let me just say as an artistic Denver wedding photographer, it can be a little intense at times!

Well, this weekend, the results came in! For me personally, I have some good feelings and some weird feelings about the results.

Shoot and Share Contest Results | Artistic denver wedding photographer

For example, here are my two photos that scored in the Top 10% of their categories:

One of these photos required days of travel, waking up at sunrise, bringing my studio lighting on the beach, and an incredible dance genius (my sister, BTW.)

The other, I thought I’d snap a cute shot of my parents’ new puppy.

Does that seem asymmetrical to you?! It does to me!

Here’s another example:

Both of these photos scored in the top 20%.

One of them is a phone photo of mini pancakes with Nutella on them from a market in London. Admittedly, they were amazing. But come on – it took like zero thought or planning!

The other is an amazing emotional moment I love from Rebecca and Joe’s Denver Hyatt Regency wedding: Rebecca’s bridesmaids seeing her for the first time in her dress. Look at their faces! You can just see how excited and happy they are for her. This is one of my favorite frames I’ve EVER clicked.

Is it not crazy that they tied?!

Just to be clear, I am in no way complaining. I’m blown away that so many people voted for my photos in such an enormous competition. But I am definitely still scratching my head a little bit!

Here are the total results:

Top 30%: Pugs, Liz and David’s BEAUTIFUL day, another beautiful and talented sister’s engagement photos, and a bridal portrait of Sheannette.

Top 20%: Sheannette and Paul’s Oxford wedding and Brown Palace Wedding CLEANED UP. The internet cannot get enough of these two! Neither can I, to be honest.

More in the top 20%: My sister and another dog. WTH.

Thank goodness my highest scored image was wedding related. I swear if those pancakes or a dog scored better, I would have had to seriously rethink some things!

Last year, I had photos go much farther in the competition, but this year, I had more total photos in the top 30% and above. So, I’m calling that progress!

This competition is totally all for fun. I’m so grateful to all my amazing clients, family, and friends who trust me to capture their most important moments – that’s really what this is all about to me.

If you want to see more, check out my Instagram feed – I post every single day, and there’s NOTHING unhealthy about that! (…Right?)