Doing what you love best.

A friend of mine entered a contest from the weather channel. The picture she entered was SPECTACULAR - a magnificent picture of a monsoon, the setting colors of the sun behind it, the rain so thick it was dark purple, and a lightening bolt through the middle of it. The bolt lit up the cloud. It's one of those pictures where you were lucky, but she was in the right spot where luck would happen. And she caught it.

It was tweeted all over, picked up by GMA and other areas. The Weather Channel put on a contest and she entered it. There were a number of images that were obviously composited (against the rules), and the 'like' inputs were obviously hacked. In the end, she made the finals. 25 images for weather, along with two other subjects. It was then handed to the judges for final ruling.

Have you entered a contest and poured your heart and soul into it? Your life, love and passion are poured into one thing - in this case an image. Your friends say you can't miss. Critics have a hard time pinning down things without making personal attacks (a sure sign you're winning). And you watch, waiting, for the results.

And when the results come in, you're name isn't on it. Squat. And the world starts to implode. Why would these other images win, when this one single pictures was just so spectacular? And look how much heart was put into it!!!!

My advise: 1) Don't enter contests. 2) The results are not rated on how much heart was put into it. 3) Don't let this contest determine the worth of your picture or your total worth, period. 4) (and most important) It's all SUBJECTIVE. Maybe one of the judges doesn't like the color purple! It really can be as simple as that!

It takes a while to recover from what you perceive as failure. But it was far from it. She didn't win the contest, but her twitter follower count went WAY up, including producers from some big network TV and weather stations. She's on the radar. Her work made it into the finals - and she shot an image that I would have LOVED to have shot. Her many friends rallied around when they recognized she was depressed and brought her around. She won. Maybe not this one contest, but in life and with photography in general, she won.

Don't let the bastar..... us, stoopid people get you down.