A 43 Things crossout story

Once upon a time – I think it was September – I happened upon an MPIX blog posting about some boat trip around New York City. Although my motion sickness typically keeps me away from small boats, the invitation was too enticing to resist.

I thought for sure that the slots would be filled, but requested admission anyway. Wouldn’t you know it, I got an email back from John of MPIX that my request went through. Exciting!

Fast forward to the boat trip, attended by all these other photographers who seemed to know exactly what they were doing. Me, I was trying to stay by the sidelines and hide the fact that I felt so out of my league. I was just happy to be there, even though I was such a doofus that I couldn’t even think of an intelligent question to ask either of the professional instructors on board. Shrew and I had a deep conversation about that on the way back. We were collectively the mannequin equivalent of a big old “D-UH?”

After the trip, we were asked to submit our five best photos for publication consideration. Let me tell you, I had such a difficult time choosing my five. Not because of the wealth of possible choices, but because I was consistently disappointed as I scrolled through file after file looking for that one shot or two that instantly looked like a contender. But there was nothing. Nada. Not a single jpeg file spoke to me. It was like they just stood there with their arms crossed and lips pursed, tapping their feet and waiting – hoping – to get deleted.

So I posted a few shots on Flickr, and enlisted the help of my ever-reliable buddies – Shrew and Darrell (my high school classmate with a killer Flickr photostream). One of the photos I uploaded was this.

I uploaded it only because I needed to have at least a few photos to show for my effort, and I was having a hard time finding some decent ones. But then Shrew saw it, and y said that she loved it and that I should enter it. In my head, I was thinking, “Really? This one? Are you sure you’re looking at the right photo?”

Obedient person that I am, I took her advice. Besides, I had no time to reconsider or even come up with five picks of my own. That’s because the lovely Lauren Brewer of HFMUS was so kind to email me and tell me that I had only a few more hours before the deadline to submit my photos. (I assumed their deadline meant by midnight that day, only to be told at 11am that the photos had to be in by 2pm. If not for Lauren, I would have completely missed the boat on that one. Pun half-intended.)

So imagine what a thrill it was to sit in the airport with the January issue of Popular Photography looking at this spread:

Recognize that photo on the lower right side?

And this is why I went to my 43 Things page, and in the I Want To Do This page, I very happily crossed out the entry about getting a photo of mine published somewhere.

Then I ate an entire pomegranate, baked cookies with my niece, and stopped groaning about why California had to be 31 degrees in the morning the very week that I was visiting.

The end.

19 thoughts on “A 43 Things crossout story”

  1. Woo-hoo!!! Congratulations and a wonderful photo. I always love how your “water” comes out…whether gray or sunlit or whatever – it always looks “real” as if you are at “eye level” with it – which seems particularly incredible in this photo from a boat.

    Here’s to an off repeated publishing!

  2. Atta gal! Why this photo…it is classically New York…geometric perfection mixed with gritty reality…cutting edge mingling with graceful history…it is what a boat trip around Manhattan is all about.

    I am so proud of you.

  3. Congrats on being published! I found you via Pioneer Woman…I love your photography! And I am a big fan of NYC (though now I live in Alaska).

  4. Thanks, everyone!! (Extra thanks to my pal Brc too for letting me know about the link. All fixed now.)

    Most of all, thanks to Shrewbie. I also say that from now on, you are my official “pick a photo for me” advisor. Thank you so much for taking the time to explain it to me, my friend.

  5. Hello, first of all, congratulations on your published photo; very awesome pic and a great acomplishment. Second of all, thank you for your work. You are an inspiration to all of us P&S people out here. Thanks to you coming to PioneerWoman’s site, you have encouraged me to learn how to operate my many fangled options on my new camera and you have caused many all nighters where i clean or cook all night with the full pot of coffee just to got out and capture the sunrise. Being a working mom of 2 boys doesn’t afford many mornings when I want to rise before the dawn on purpose to do this! Anyhow, thanks again for being here and keep up the beautiful work.

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