Last night together as a group.

Today has been a day full of shooting which was also made up of good company, conversation and learning.

This is our last day night together as a "team" and we closed out by having a night of critique.

Scott told us over dinner that we could bring five images to be critiqued and it was up to us as to how we wanted it to be served up: mild, medium and hot salsa! And guess what I wanted.

We had half an hour to select our five images. And we weren't supposed to select our strong images. They were to be the ones we thought were the weakest and where we could learn the most from.

It was not hard for me. I had quite a few images where I tried something and the execution just did not work.

Scott and the other professionals were brutal. They held nothing back. And I'm glad they didn't. It encouraged me. There were three of the five that were salvageable through a tighter crop. I was quite happy with that.

Me, Nikki and Scott were standing around after the session and he greatly encouraged us. I have to tell you, this man may put on a hard outer shell, but he has such a heart of gold!!! He is a great encourager. He wants to challenge people to bring out the best in them. What an honor this experience has been.

Nikki and I found out even more information about the contest and really how good our photos were to have been selected. Apple had to approve all the images. They had their photo professionals give the final approval for all four of our images.

I feel a bit like Sally Fields when she won her academy award: "You like me." :-)

Tomorrow morning the winners are going to be interviewed and we will take a group photo. After that, Steve and I are going to do a bit of shooting as we go through the park on the way to the airport. And that will be the end of this amazing time with such a talented group of people.

There is the next step of editing our photos down and sending them in to be submitted in the book the Peach Pit Press is going to be creating out of the four contests. There is no guarantee that any of our images are going to be selected to be included in the book, but I know at least one of mine will be.

There are two more contests to be run, eight more people to have this amazing experience and more wonderful images to be captured.