During the last school semester, one of my friends told me about a photography contest. This contest was held by a magazine called, “Photographer’s Forum.” I never actually entered into a photography contest before this, so I figured that if I were to begin to get my photographs out in the world, what better place to start than a photography contest? Before entering, I asked my photography professor if any other of his students have entered in to this contest before. He told me that a few of his past students actually did and some of them received a honorable mention award.

Hearing that students before were able to win an award from this contest, I thought that I may as well enter some of photographs and see what happens. I entered five photographs that I took during that school year, all color photography. Each photograph was from a different project from my Color Photography class. I entered the best ones that I thought I had and did not really think about the contest afterwards.

So when the year ended I actually completely forgot about the contest. During the summer I got a magazine in the mail, the Photographer’s Forum. This reminded me of the contest and I thought that this was what they gave you if you won an award in the contest. Once I looked closer at the magazine I realized that it was for the 2016 contest. This got me thinking about the contest again and wondered if at least one of my photographs was good enough to win something.

Then a few weeks later I got a letter in the mail. It was a letter from the Photographer’s Forum magazine. When I read what was inside I couldn’t believe it. The letter said that I was a finalist in the photography contest! What made it even better was that one of photographs was picked out of over 9,100 photographs. It still amazes me. So in a couple of weeks I will get another letter saying if I won an award or not, but one thing that is certain is that my photograph will be published in their book, “Best of Photography 2017.” I’m officially a published photographer!

(Finalist photograph below)