At last weekend’s ProBlogger event, I won a camera. A brand new super cool Olympus OM-D camera and an extra 25mm lens.  I can’t begin to tell you how excited I was!

There were 354 entries and many of the photos posted were amazing. I didn’t think I had a chance. As much as I wanted to win, I lost hope based on the quality of some of the other entries.

How did I win?

The old saying goes, ‘you have to be in to win it’, so I entered the Olympus competition at ProBlogger.

The brief: To post on Instagram a creative photo featuring a mini-sized Olympus OM-D camera. Most creative post wins the real thing.

When I picked up a mini-sized Olympus OM-D, my head started swimming with ideas for photos – playing with the perspective was what I wanted to do. I tried and failed – the photo looked rubbish so I deleted it. Looking at the mini camera, I thought it would be the perfect size for Barbie.

When I got back to where I was staying, my favourite Aunt’s awesome apartment in the Moroccan building, I asked her if she happened by chance to have any Barbie dolls.

‘Yes, I do in fact, I have a whole box of them. Lauren won’t let me throw them out!’, Anna says, to my absolute surprise.

Lauren is my cousin and she has a box full of her favourite childhood toys that she wants to keep for her future kids.  We got the box out, straightened up Ken and Barbie’s clothes and got to work setting up some photos.  It was a lot of fun and boy did we laugh!

My entry

Below is the series of photos and caption that were uploaded to the Instagram feed #olympuslovesbloggers and #pbevent.

I entered multiple times and there was a reason for that besides giving myself a greater chance to win a camera that I really wanted. I wanted to tell a story.

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And this was the winning photo:

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NB:  the hashtags required for the competition #olympuslovesbloggers and #pbevent were all on posts, but I cropped most of them for this post.

Just goes to show, you have to be in it to win it

As I work in events and in PR, I know only too well that without sponsors, events would not be possible. So thanks to Olympus for sponsoring the awesome ProBlogger event – if you are blogger and haven’t yet been to ProBlogger, I highly recommend you put in it in your diary for next year (likely date August, dates / location not yet announced).

I have just bought an SD card and look forward to playing with my awesome new toy.  BTW, anyone want to buy a Canon G1X, 8 months old, hardly used? It’s going for a good price 🙂 – send me an email dianne@travelletto.com if you’re keen.

Super huge thanks to my cousin Lauren who insisted her mum keep her Barbies, and thanks for my favourite Aunt, Anna, for letting me stay, your wonderful hospitality and for helping me with some of the photos. Thanks too to the waitress at the QT hotel that held Ken for me in front of the giant fruit mountain.