On Monday it became official that I had won a competition. Even though I found out last friday and now posting to you all a week later I figured it was about time to spread the word. A few months back Condor Airlines (part of the Thomas Cook Group of airlines and based in Frankfurt) put out a competition. Submit a photo of one of their aircraft in the new heart livery, or one of their special schemes and you could win $1000 travel voucher.

I had totally forgotten about this competition between when I entered and when I got advised I had made the finals. I am pretty sure I saw this come out on twitter and though, hey I have some photos of condor, why not. I was lucky enough to have gotten one of the special schemes while up in Anchorage back in May. I had a wide range of photos and figured I would enter the one that screams Anchorage. A Take off shot with mountains in the background. It wasn’t my best work but hey, I didn’t expect to win.

I submitted the photo and then totally forgot about it. All the way up till about 2 weeks ago when I got a twitter DM asking me for a copy of the high res version for the finals. I was pretty happy about that, but then last Friday morning I am sitting and work and here twitter go off. I loaded up tweetdeck (since I was at my pc) and see a direct message from Condor saying “Congratulations”. I was shocked, utterly shocked. I had not ever thought I would win and really only submitted that photo because I figured I had nothing better to do. There are far better aviation photographers out there, way better than I am, I have also taken much better photos in my life, but damn was I over the moon. Here is the photo that I submitted

From Anchorage Spotting

Fast forward to Monday and it becomes official. The All Stars page shows my photo and then last night I recieved my voucher in the mail. What prompted this photo was actually another tweet this morning. Condor gave a Friday shout out to everyone and then also changed around there Twitter header to my photo:

Condors Twitter Header

That to me is a huge honor. Not only did my photo win, but it is now being seen by anyone world wide! The whole thing makes me smile, just looking at that tweet that says they have my photo up. I feel like my hobby actually has a point now. Everyone has always asked why I do it? To be honest I can’t really give an answer that makes people go “wow that is so true”. I do it because I like doing it. I take the photos for me, not really for anyone else. If other people get to enjoy it, great. But this kind of makes me feel special that other people do enjoy my photos, that maybe I am not doing this just for myself but for all the other Avgeeks out there.

This isn’t a “hey i just won $1000 travel voucher” kind of big head post but more of a “hey, I didn’t really realise until now that other people enjoy what I do”. If other people in the world can enjoy my photos, and who knows maybe some of my photos are plastered all up over peoples offices or something, then that makes me feel special because I know that my hobby is more than just a time waster, it is a real hobby. So to all of those Avgeeks out there who wonder if it is worth it, I say to you. It sure is!