What a year 2022 has been. Especially photography competition wise... So I thought it would be nice to put together a little overview and show you my most successful photographs of 2022.
The year started off with the Tog Awards where I received my very first international Merit. The picture I entered was the one of Phara on the beach, here in Inverkip. It was taken at the very beginning of 2022. My friend Sara and I had taken our dogs to the beach for some sunset pictures. Phara didn't really fancy standing still, and I had about given up hope of going home with a decent, usable image. In fact, this picture of Phara on the rocks was taken in a split second, where I almost fell on my bum on one of the slippery rocks! But that split second was enough for me to press that shutter button and go home with - what would turn out to be - an award-winning image!
After that came the The International Pet Photographer of the Year Awards. In 2021 I managed to get 1 picture selected in the top 100. For 2022, the goal was to reach the top 25. And while I did not quite manage to reach the top 25, I did manage to get 3 of my images into the top 100! It wasn't what I had aimed for, but honestly, I was super proud to have had 3 images selected. What an honour!
Third came the IPA - the International Photography Awards. If you have checked them out before, you will know this is a massive international competition, with lots of different categories. Up to this point in the year, it was one of the biggest competitions I had ever entered! It was very scary and very intimidating as well. I entered only 2 pictures, but both received an Official Selection badge in the categories Nature/Animals - Pets and Special - Pets, and one went on to place as an Honorable Mention in the category Special - Pets. Keep in mind that the International Photography Awards received more than 14,000 entries from 120 countries around the world, and per category only 15 pictures are selected as Honorable Mentions! And one of my pictures made it!
Yep,... exactly... Mind? Blown!
The next award that followed was a bit of an odd one sticking out, not necessarily a photography based award, but more of a business based award. One I am very proud to show off as well.
It is still a bit funny to think of myself this way, but I can call myself the Pet Photography Specialist of the Year thanks to Scotland Prestige Awards. Pretty awesome, if I can say so myself!
Back to photography awards then. The end of 2022 brought plenty of good news. The Chromatic Awards awarded me with 3 Honorable Mentions in their category Wildlife and Animals.
The funny thing was that I only entered 3 images and all 3 got awarded! That's a 100% success rate! Amiright? Ha... pretty chuffed with that stat.
And last but not least, there was the Dog Photography Awards. This was an extremely tough competition, with the final results still to be announced in early January 2023. There were 4 categories, with only 15 images each, to make it through as finalists.
I am so proud to say that I managed to place as a finalist in the category Portrait & Landscape.
All images that were selected for the finalist spots are utterly gorgeous, so to have one of my images amongst them is a dream come true.
So that was the competition year 2022. I hope you liked this round-up of images.
I hope that next year, I can do a bit better maybe, but above all, that I will have as much fun creating new award-winning images as I did this year!
For now, enjoy the festive break, and see you all in 2023!
xxx
Andi