Today we wrapped up the last 6 months of Embark 2023, the first in our Unleashed Challenge series of courses. The awards ceremony was hosted live on Zoom and streamed to the Pet Photography Unleashed Facebook group.

We had the pleasure of announcing all 12 of the individual challenge winners, the overall 3rd, 2nd and 1st place winners for the whole challenge. As well as a couple of special 'Most Improved' awards and a handful of Highly Commended portfolios. 

Amazingly, there were 61 people who completed all 12 challenges by the deadline and WOW, what an inspirational group that set the standard and then blew us away as every challenge went by. If you've been keeping your eyes on the top 10 blog posts, you will no doubt have loved the images as much as we did.

Congratulations to everyone who participated, and extra special congrats to the winners. We've loved seeing you all grow in skills and confidence over the last 6 months.

Let's take a look at the winning images, up first, all the individual challenge winners...

01 Colouriffic

Winner: Annette Hagemeijer | Furry Friend Photography

02 Get Down

Winner: Shandess Griffin | Shand and Your Dogs Photography

03 Composition 101

Winner: Julie Cork | J Cork Photography

04 Dogscapes 

Winner: Erin Waggoner | Paw Prints Pet Portraiture

05 Up Ups

Winner: Elle Manton | Rogue Paws Photography

06 Soul Searcher

Winner: Lisa Olson | Pets R Family

07 City Slicker

Winner: Shandess Griffin | Shand and Your Dogs Photography

08 Front Runner

Winner: Ginger Wick | Ginger Wick Photography

09 Say What?

Winner: Eva Duerkop 

10 Glow-Up

Winner: Eva Duerkop

11 Splash!

Winner: Teran Buckner | Phido Photography

12 Party Time 

Winner: Desiree Nickerson | Born 2 Run Photography

Overall Winners

Most Improved

Patricia Mattes | Patty Mattes Photography

3rd Place

Dianne Willemsen 

2nd Place 

Desiree Nickerson | Born 2 Run Photography

1st Place 

Shandess Griffin | Shand and Your Dogs Photography

Do you want to join us for Embark?

To find out more head over to Embark.

Embark is made up of 12 challenges over 6 months and is the first interactive course in the Unleashed Challenges series.

Much more than just a challenge, Embark is an invaluable educational resource that will help you build up a go-to list of shots to help create variety in your work. Designed for anyone to be able to complete whether you just want to photograph your own dog or you are a professional pet photographer.