A PERCEIVED SLIGHT
Funny story.
I recently wrote about the Grand Strand Magazine photo contest, more specifically about how my “underperformance” the last time I entered was a disappointment early in my Myrtle Beach photo career, and how even though it was quickly overshadowed by the looming threat of a global pandemic, it managed to stick with me all this time.
The April/May 2020 issue featuring the winner(s) was published a few weeks after the day Covid-19 ‘officially’ hit (don’t you dare take Tom Hanks from us, you bastards) and the business I worked for, like most others, was ordered to shut it’s doors not long after.
I was a newbie to the contest, and after seeing that none of my five my submissions made it to second round of online voting conducted in February of that year, I chalked it up as a loss. I would go on to learn that it was actually just one portion of the contest - the Reader’s Choice Award - and, well, the readers had spoken. A decisive ‘You’re not ready yet’. I was really proud of these pictures and getting one of them published so early into my time here would have been instant gratification - a stamp of approval from my new neighbors and some momentum in the right direction.
But as businesses closed, toilet paper disappeared from store shelves and people began to realize the dire circumstances unfolding over the following few weeks and months, I lost track of the contest results (I just knew I hadn’t won) and the last thing I thought of was to mask up and go get a copy of the issue with someone else’s winning photo on the cover.
Well, I should have.
Fast-forward to April 1, 2025. I’ve been here in Myrtle for over five years (which makes you a local here!) and for the first time, I’m officially a Grand Strand Magazine subscriber - a choice I made after entering this year’s contest, with the intention of winning and pulling the cover out of my own mailbox [Bet on yourself, that’s a major key.] But when the magazine teased the new issue on their Instagram, I saw that the cover image was not mine.
Damn.
But what’s this? They linked to an online gallery with “contest winners”. I clicked it so hard I could have broken my thumb. Quick scroll and… I spot three of my photos. Oh my God. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? Am I going to be published!? Were there other awards!? I never received any communication from anyone. WHAT IS GOING ON!?
It was, April Fool’s Day after all.
For the next few days I was on the hunt for an actual hard-copy of the new magazine. I checked the grocery store and pharmacy up the street. I ran home after work to check my mailbox, even though I get an email each morning with a scanned image of any incoming mail. I was a kid peaking out into the living room a little too early on Christmas Eve. He hadn’t been here yet.
Then, today at the same grocery store I checked two days prior, my friend and colleague Angie saw them loading up the newsstand with the new edition. She grabbed one and at checkout, a lady burst out “Where did you get that!?”
Angie pointed, and the lady replies "I took that photo on the cover!".
What are the odds of that? My coworker’s there, at the exact time they’re stocking the magazine, possibly buying the first copy… and the lady that won the contest is standing right there, seemingly learning of the news herself?
What!?
Angie held the magazine up as she walked in the back door of our office. My search was no secret. I raised my hands to the heavens. Touchdown.
I tore it open and flew through the pages.
YOOOOOO!!
ALL THREE IMAGES were published, at least a half-page each, full color and hi-def. Shipped to every subscriber and FORTY vendors across the Grand Strand, with the Snow on Broadway pic getting the 'centerfold treatment'. I was astounded. These were my three favorite images of the year.* And now you can go buy them at the grocery store.
* My only proof of this is that all three have been used as the photo for the landing page on this website, the very first thing you see when you visit stewgetsbuckets dot com. I have only ever used 6 images for that in total since the inception of the website in 2017. So these are shots that I am very, very proud of.
As I flipped through the pages, admiring some of the other images (my favorite is Where the Frogs Sing by Marsh Deane) - I had an epiphany.
I was never contacted about this. Not that I was upset - it’s likely in the fine-print that anything submitted to the contest is now theirs to publish, and I was ecstatic regardless - but this meant that perhaps… just maybe…
… they don’t ever contact the winners.
My mind raced back to April 2020. I pictured inside the grocery stores: the baby-blue surgical masks, the hideous yellowy-cream color of empty shelves and… that magazine on the display rack at the register. Is it possible? Was I in that magazine?
I typed ‘Grand Strand Magazine April 2020’ into Google and hit Search. There it was in PDF form. I clicked through to the contest winners.
The persecution never existed.
There was no defeat, no chorus of boos. I did get a stamp of approval from my new neighbors.
It just took me half a decade to realize it.
I’ve written a lot about momentum on here lately and looking back on this through that lens brings me to the question: what would some momentum have done there? Going into Covid with a shiny new feather in my cap, an early accomplishment after a major life change, perhaps even a sign that I made the ‘right move’ - would it have changed anything?
[Editors note: the following month I was arrested at BLM protest, tackled to the ground and jailed for 20 hours, after which I didn’t post anything on this website for nearly two years. It’s possible, likely in fact, that ANY amount of momentum would have been squashed by an event like that.]
Alright maybe the editor’s note answered that one, so here’s a better question: would you go back and change it? No, not Covid. Of course I would change that. I mean knowing about being published, at that time and place. Was it the missing momentum I was looking for? Or was it a slice of humble pie that I actually needed? Would I have entered the contest in those years in between with some wind behind my sails? Or did thinking I still needed to put the work in around here drive me to do bigger and better things? In hindsight (and you know what they say about that) I don’t think I would change it. I think that somewhere deep down, I used that ‘loss’, that perceived slight, as motivation. Not once or twice, but continually and repeatedly, all the way up until this afternoon.
While I don’t think it was life-altering, in a MJ-getting-cut-from-JV type of way, I do know it bothered me, subconsciously or not, this whole time. I wanted to make a splash, make a name for myself right away. I wanted to pick up where I left off in CR...
…and it turns out I did!?
After just a few months here I was a published photographer in a highly visible (did I mention 40 stores?) yet specifically local magazine, a huge accomplishment for an artist trying to break into a new market. But I didn’t know it, and maybe, just maybe - that was for the better.
There is just something about the coincidence of Angie bumping into the cover photographer as she’s buying the magazine - there are around 400k residents in the Grand Strand after all - that makes me think it was all just meant to be.
For me, for her, for the winner in 2020. Just meant to be.
It’s a comedy of errors, like I said - a funny story, if you can laugh at yourself. Motivated day in and day out, by a loss that never happened.
Good news is I have a new perceived slight, a new boogieman so-to-speak.
I want that cover.
[Editor’s note: I want that first issue too! $100 bounty on a hard-copy of the April/May 2020 issue of Grand Strand Magazine.]