I couldn’t think what to speak about this week… I almost wrote about how I was miffed not to be in the Pro Photo Mag Top 50 but I’ll keep that to myself.
But I was doing a bit of digital spring cleaning and came across a folder of all my award entries ever, and thought I’d show you what I entered for my first ever set of entries into Fearless collection 11 waaaaay back in August 2012.
Just so happens to be almost exactly 10 years to the day since I entered them. So here they are!
I mean if that’s not “Fearless” then what is? There’s a BMW in the background doing about 5mph, maybe someone will be severely injured while for some reason sitting in the middle of the road?
This one didn’t win.
Believe it or not this was all the rage back then.
I’m sure Mark, this groom, loved spending 20 minutes being told to do this over and over again when I probably could’ve just photographed him with his hand like that then photoshopped the rings in later.
This one didn’t win.
I remember thinking this 135mm shot of this bride putting on her garter, artistically black-and-whited, was absolutely nailed on for an award.
This one didn’t win.
I went through a phase of finding very small spots of light and putting people in them. I actually still like this one even though the shadow looks a bit like a beard.
This one didn’t win.
After not getting them killed by the 5mph BMW earlier, I took these guys to some kind of outhouse then concocted this ethereal storytelling scene with my own mind.
This one didn’t win.
So good he entered it twice. Just in case they missed the first version I guess. Naked legs is as Fearless as it gets, no?
This one didn’t win.
I remember often thinking that effort = award winning. If you’ve met me you’ll know I’m 5’8″ and this vantage point is not something I possess naturally. Balanced on the corner post of a bed I thought this “chandelier” would make epic foreground bokeh.
This one didn’t win.
I suppose I entered this one because of the foot on the shoulder and actually the black and white squares. Of course the actual moment I wanted to capture was around the other side of the guy on the floor playing air guitar. I think I was hoping the judges would see that version in their heads.
This one didn’t win.
I would still shoot this now. I love the light and composition but the bored expressions and lack of any kind of moment, yep you guessed it…
This one didn’t win.
I still love this one too believe it or not and yep, it’s the same wedding as the roadblock and the outhouse. I loved this at the time for lots of reasons and I’d still be proud of it now. But ‘nice photography’ doesn’t often win awards, so…
This one didn’t win.
I went through a phase, for some reason, of asking the groomsmen to attack the groom. Why? Because I wanted to win awards, and I didn’t care if people’s outfits got ruined or actual bodily harm was inflicted. I stopped this after a groom ripped his very expensive trousers from front to back and had to borrow his groomsman’s trousers for the rest of the day while his groomsman had to spend the rest of the day in his jeans. Was it my fault? The jury’s out.
This one didn’t win.
Stop laughing.
This one didn’t win.
None of them won.
I entered them, just as I entered most awards, thinking I’d probably break the record for most awards in a single round. Sadly this often happened and looking back at my entries I didn’t enter the next two rounds after this one, probably because my ego was so bruised.
Moral of the story: we all start somewhere. We make stops along the way which we may look back on and wonder why we stopped there and did that, but it’s all part of the process. The learning process, the growing process… working out what makes us tick artistically and how we can balance that with giving our clients an enjoyable experience on the day while making meaningful photos that they will love for decades.
Thanks for reading!
Adam
