Earlier this week, I won my first photography contest.  I was very surprised as I wasn’t expecting to win.

Improve Photography ran a black and white photo contest last week and timidly, I entered the photo below. I very rarely enter photo contests because I always believed I had zero chance of winning. So this win totally caught me by surprise.

I was so pleased when I got the email telling me I had been chosen as the winner out of over 600 entries. Winning this photo contest also comes at a significant time. You see,  I started shooting in manual last year August so this month is my one year anniversary of ‘learning how to use my camera’.

What an awesome one year anniversary present.

This is the photo that won:

The photo is from a child photo session I did recently with George from Rainham, Essex. I will be posting images from the rest of the session shortly.

You can see Improve Photography’s Facebook status announcing the winner here.

Speaking about my winning picture, Jim from Improve Photography said on Facebook, “I’m just WAITING for someone to complain about the head being chopped off. That’s always a pet peeve for some people, but Dustin and I like it because it allows us to get tighter in on the subject and create a more interesting composition. Notice how SHARP and clear the photo is? Also, notice the subtle sepia tones on the background but not on the face.”

I’m so happy, I’m doing the azonto here.