While contests like these don’t really mean much, I still thought it would be fun to enter them just to see what happened. I doubt I will enter any pay-to-play contests in 2022. Photography is such a subjective art that winning in one of these contests shouldn’t blow your ego up anymore than not winning should tear it down. Just go out and shoot and have fun.

Earlier this year, around February 2021, I finally just bit the bullet and ordered a Leica M10 Monochrom from the Leica store in San Francisco. This was the first brand new Leica that I’d ever purchased. I’m not ashamed to admit that I had tears in my eyes as I opened the package. I don’t know what it is about the Leica bug, but I have it big time. Opening a Leica camera is akin to buying a new iPhone or computer from Apple. Each company puts in a lot of effort into their packaging and it just adds to the mystique of their products.

I woke up Sunday morning to an email congratulating me on one of my photographs receiving an honorable mention. It was from the ND Awards, a photography contest that I had entered earlier in the year.