October is the final month of the year for the Guild of Photographers' Image of the Month competition, and although I've enjoyed this year, I have to say I'm ready for a break!
This is my third year of entering IOM and I think this has probably been the hardest year so far - at least in terms of my own goals which include achieving the Photographer's Bar for the second year.
At the beginning of 2019 the rules changed so that my genre - Pets - now has its own category, which means that to achieve the Bar, I needed to enter 24 images over 8 months. Although I achieved the Bar last year, I used a combination of pet and wildlife images, so this has been more challenging in terms of entering enough images to qualify.
I think I've done it - although that won't be confirmed officially until the Guild Awards night in February - but it has felt gruelling the last couple of months. So I was pleased to end the year on a high which two Bronzes, both of which came from a litter reunion photo shoot from January of this year.
This beautiful old lady is Maddi, who is the grandma of the Fleekform Working Springer Spaniels litter reunion I was invited along to back in January. She is now 13 years old and - as you can see - a pro in front of the camera!
Lemur (middle) is Maddi's granddaughter and was just a year old when this was taken. As part of the reunion litter shoot I took portraits of each pup on their own as well as other dogs in their family. Here, Lemur is with Ruby (L) and Dash (R) - all posing beautifully.
So it's time for a couple of months break from IOM which I am looking forward to - although already beginning to look for contenders for next year's entries from my recent photo shoots!
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