It’s been an incredible birthday month! We gave away free things, released a brand new logo, offered some discounts, and topped it all off with an awesome photo quest where we asked you to share YOUR personal expression.

Over the past 6 years, 500px has gone through some major changes, seen incredible growth, and become THE place for you to share your best photos. But through it all, the mission has remained the same: enable and reward visual creativity.

But our community’s visual creativity goes WAY beyond photography, and that’s what we wanted to find out with our #MyPX personal expression photo quest. Let’s find out what the community loves, and how they shared that love with us through photography.

Armando Alvarez Lopez doesn’t just take pictures, he makes plastic models too:

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Sham Jolimie loves to spend time with animals… often her camera comes along with her, helping her capture photos like this:

I Come from Your Dreams by Sham Jolimie on 500px.com

This one was no surprise, Emmanuel Canaan’s passion is aviation:

Focus by Emmanuel Canaan on 500px.com

And João P. Santos didn’t have to tell us what his personal expression is outside of photography, because his photo said it all: skateboarding.

The Road by João P. Santos on 500px.com

Other awesome entries included Diving with Turtles:

Diving with turtles by caqi on 500px.com

Intense mountain biking:

Hobby outside photography by Matias Kolppo on 500px.com

Collecting and repairing vintage bikes:

My self and my bicycle by Dario Barachetti on 500px.com

Getting tattoos:

11.11 by Serena Tani on 500px.com

And one of the most descriptive of the entries, Matthew Hunt titled his entry “The Tinkerer,” explaining that he loves to “explore the mechanics of anything I can get my hands on, I fiddle, I tamper, I create, and sometimes I even destroy… I am a tinkerer, and this is MyPX.”

The Tinkerer by Matthew Hunt on 500px.com

In all, over 5,700 entries were submitted to the MyPX Photo Quest!! It makes us all swell with pride for our community to see all your amazing talents, and how you each decided to capture them through Photography.

If you want to see all the entries, just click here and start scrolling. You won’t be disappointed!

But, of course, for every Photo Quest there must be a Photo Quest winner, and this was no exception. Five prizes will go to random users who submitted to the quest, but one grand prize winner WAS selected, and it was…

Drum roll please…

Sweet Summer Breeze by Michelle Magnoli:

Sweet Summer Breeze by Michelle Magnoli on 500px.com

Not only is this a stunning photograph, but the description and Michelle’s “PX” is what really sold us:

Aside from photography, a hobby of mine is dress-making. I make the dresses of the majority of my shoots, including this one. I also used to dance ballet, and while I no longer belong to a studio, I will always love it. Model is Jessica Whittemore.

So much passion in a single frame! And the idea of her making the dresses in some of her beautiful portraits had us all smiling at the office.

As for those 5 random winners. Say congratulations to Alan Smith, Nitish Kumar Meena, Lodewijk De Decker, Allie Knowles, and Faith Kaya:

Guitar 3 by Alan Smith on 500px.com

Unfold by Nitish Kumar Meena on 500px.com

On the road by Lodewijk De Decker on 500px.com

Red Tailed Hawk, Swan Point Cemetery, Providence, Rhode Island by Allie Knowles on 500px.com

Nothing beats a lazy sunday! by Fatih  Kaya on 500px.com

Congrats to all the winners and HUGE thank you to everybody who participated, followed the rules, and submitted to this Photo Quest. It was such a blast seeing everybody’s hobbies outside of photography… you really are the best photography community in the world.

If you’re one of the winners, please make sure your email info in your 500px profile is current, and expect a message from us so we can get you your prizes! Until next time, happy shooting!