How to Challenge Yourself as an Artist

I’m always looking for ways to grow and improve, so I joined Unleashed Education’s  (https://www.unleashed.education/) 6 month challenges. The image “Best Day Ever” was originally created for that challenge but I didn’t end up using it because I had a different image that suited the brief better. Thanks to the Unleashed Education Challenges, after completing the first set of challenges, I finally felt just enough confidence to start entering competitions.

My dogs have always loved the water and I’ve loved watching and photographing them living their best lives, which often means playing in water. So, when a challenge prompt from Unleashed Education’s Embark series challenge Splash called for a photo involving water, it felt like the perfect opportunity to load up my dogs for a doggy adventure at Lake Mead.

As usual, that day I took a ridiculous number of photos and to be honest, I completely overlooked the Best Day Ever image because another image fit the brief perfectly. Later, when I needed an action shot for a competition, this one stood out. At the time, I thought it was good—but nothing exceptional. I was pleasantly surprised by how well it did in competition! It made the Imaging Excellence collection and also scored an 86 at the Animal Image Makers competition.  

Technical details:

• Camera: Nikon  D500
• Lens:** 70.0-200.0 mm f/2.8 at 200 f/2.8 (crop sensor = 300mm)  
• Settings: ISO 400, f/2.8, 1/1600 sec  

This was one of the first images I ever entered into competition, and the experience was both stressful and rewarding. Competitions are an amazing way to learn—judges’ feedback has shown me things I never noticed before. One important lesson I’ve learned is that competitions are subjective: an image that does great in one contest might not fare well in another, and vice versa. But that’s what makes it fun—the variety of perspectives keeps me growing as a photographer.