Okay, SOOOOOO……. it’s my last night in Vegas! WHAT have I learned?????

Wow, just writing that sends a million emotions and thoughts flooding to the forefronts of my mind! But I will tell you in short, because I am tired and I will likely need to wake in the morning!

I learned that ART IS SUBJECTIVE!!! And that even though I KNOW this, it still hurts when I’m judged poorly.

I came here with hopes. Not HIGH hopes… but hopes. And that’s more than I have come with in a long time!!!

When I was faced with the fact that my hopes were dashed, I was faced with……. what?

I went to a quiet corner in this OH so busy conference center and shed a few tears. Totally disappointed that I let myself get vulnerable. I HATE being vulnerable.

I texted my husband who was quick to come to my defense. But in the end, I had to realize for myself that I am not defined by what others think of me, but by a passion much deeper than someone elses scores. I don’t care that they didn’t care for the fact that my subject was in the middle of an image and that was a ‘no no’! The image got RAVE reviews from the people that matter most to me! And THAT is my driving force!

Too often we define ourselves by someone elses standards. But when I was in those judging rooms, I watched as a simple challenge changed a score from a 76 to an 85…… A meager score that would never be seen….to a score that would be hung in the gallery! THAT meant that a few judges had to be CONVINCED it was a good print!!

CONVINCED…..?????

If they weren’t full of their own conviction at the beginning of the judging then I question why they were there in the first place – that they could be SWAYED in their original scoring.

I have done a LOT of thinking this week and realized that I don’t need ANYONE to convince me of what I do or how well I do it!

Just tonite, I sat in a class with a photographer that showed WAY less than stellar work and made a generous living. I was a little bit appalled that he was even there. And though that sounds really harsh; he started his presentation with a comment about photographers who work with less than stellar equipment….and his work showed no better than an aspiring photographer with “said” equipment.

Everything is subjective. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. My beholder are my clients. Thankfully, I have been blessed with wonderful clients. This means I meet their eye and give them what they want. To me that is THE most important factor in what I do!

I will be coming home enriched. I will grow from what I learned and hopefully be better on return than when I left.

I refuse to be defined by someone who can raise their ‘opinion’ an average of 8 points because someone else swayed them in that direction.

I’m excited to come home better than when I left. I have a lot more to offer and a lot more passion for it!

Happy Tuesday!