.."sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to click the shutter."

 For years now (i don't even know how many) I have been interested in photography. I love to see it, and I love to capture the moments myself. There's really no other way for me to remember things or understand having been there unless I have a photo of it. I can look back at a time in a photo and remember exactly how I felt the moment it was taken, and I can rehash those emotions over and over each time I look at it.
 Photo's, to me, tell stories. The wonderful thing about them is that they never tell the same story to any person. You can look a photo and see something totally different than the person next to you, and that is beautiful to me. There is no other way to capture something that you want to hold as a memory forever. Photos can't be erased. Photos take you into a place that maybe you've always wanted to be. Photos compare to being there yourself, although sometimes I will say that they can fall short.

 Just a few weeks ago, I was googling photo contests in Mississippi because I wanted to participate in some this summer just to get some of my still shots out there. I know they aren't world class photos (by any means), but I wanted to give it a shot, thinking, "what have I got to lose? (other than a ten dollar entry fee.... and postal fee..... and rejection..... oh well, putting that aside...)" So, putting that aside, I went for it. I entered seven photos into the Mississippi Wildlife Federation (MWF) State Photography Contest. I was allowed three in each group, and the groups were:

• Mississippi's Natural Landscapes
• Wildlife Birds (Native to MS)
• Wildlife Other (Native to MS)
• People
• Floral Macro
• Macro (Wildlife/Nature)

So, I entered three in landscapes and floral macro and one in wildlife (other).

I got a letter in the mail saying that two of the photos had been judged as winners in the landscape and floral macro categories! I was excited because one advantage of winning (in the Overall, which hasn't been judged yet), is being published in the MWF magazine. THAT is on my "to-do before I....run out of time" list.
 I truly am blessed because all of the honorable mention photos were stunning. They truly were. I would have hated to be a judge in a contest involving those photographs.
 I have a lot of ideas about how I want to use my photography in the future, and I'm really excited about a certain thing, but I haven't quite put it all together in my head yet. I'm hoping that it will hit me like a ton of bricks one day.
 Another thing i'm looking forward to is hopefully participating in these contests year-round. They [it is/are] fun, and it also gives me a little more drive to push myself into more unique photo-opportunities.

If you'd like to check out this year's results or see about entering next year, click here.

"While there is, perhaps, a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see."  ~Dorothea Lange