Things have been in such upheaval lately that it’s been difficult for me to get back to some of my normal photography activities.  While I can keep going out and getting landscape photos, photography competitions have been a bit light lately.  Well, that changed here very recently.  Check out how I did at the Garfield County Fair photography competition.

Most of the photography competitions I’ve been entering lately have been exclusively on Viewbug.  While it’s great to still enter contests, I felt the need to branch out and try a different content.  Thankfully, the perfect opportunity was coming my way in the form of the Garfield County Fair photography competition.

With my entrant’s handbook mailed to me, I got to work on my entries for the year.  I didn’t know just what I could or couldn’t do.  The rules are for this contest are very vague for the most part.  There was nothing said about size, framing (or lack thereof), matting (or lack thereof), hanging hardware, and other aspects of presentation.  Thanks to potential broken glass liability, I was not allowed glass in front of my pictures.

I had never been to the fair before, let alone seen the photography competition before.  I didn’t know what my competition in the contest looked like at all.  In short, I had no idea of what to expect.  Still, I ordered my photos printed and ready then hoped for the best.  I was even one of the very first people to drop off exhibits so I didn’t even have that going for me.

I got the shock of my life when I walked into the fair building and saw my photos up on display.  I’ll let the pictures I took do most of the talking for me on this.

“Wow” was all I could think of for quite a while.  I swept the photography contest easily.  I even received one of only 2 sweepstakes ribbons awarded that year.

To be fair, I saw a LOT of blue ribbons handed out.  I saw a few red ribbons scattered in the entries.  However, there were no white ribbons to be found.  Most everyone got to walk out VERY happy with a blue ribbon.

This is also the first year where I actually understood how the judges viewed my photography as they attached the tally sheets to the entry cards.  The judge had some very complimentary things to say about my photography.  I’d say so simply based on seeing all the ribbons adorning my photos.

It was simply a great and enlightening experience to get back out there into the real (not virtual) world of photography competitions and see how I would do.  I found doing do this exceptionally well was simply a very unexpected bonus.