Lessons from the Art Show

I went to the Bethesda art show on Sunday. It's a juried art show, which means that the artists were required to submit applications and essentially "apply" for inclusion in the event. Only about 6 or 7 exhibits were from photographers, so this was a very select group.
I set the bar very high for myself, so using others' work in a show like this as a benchmark definitely helps me. Here's what I gathered from the exhibits:
1) There were generally one or two areas of specialization per artist. Five of the exhibits focused on one area.
2) The pictures themselves were crowd-pleasers - in other words, visually appealing, but nothing requiring a lot of technical precision. Here's one example of mine that was similar:

3) Crowd-pleasing definitely did not mean generic. Many of these pictures were beautiful, but with a twist. There was always an extra element of interest. Here's an example:

(note the seagull in the middle, and the footprints on the left - that's what I mean by visual interest)
4) NO macro photography. I couldn't believe it! I would die without pictures like these:

I'm therefore taking a cue from my professional life by setting a goal for myself: Twice a month, I will enter one contest of sorts. Magazines have them, as well as online sources. Since we're mid-month, and since I submitted my work earlier this month, that gives me until the 31st to find something else. The law of numbers dictates that good things will happen!
Till tomorrow!