Today we bring you a selection of our very favorite visitor images from the 2012 Smithsonian Folklife Festival in our annual Best of the Festival gallery. Photographers selected for this final gallery will receive free Festival merchandise in acknowledgement of their participation.

Sharing your photos on Flickr is your chance to see your work featured as part of the Smithsonian’s virtual presence–your photographs, “in the Smithsonian.” We pick a few of our favorite visitor photos or videos every day, and take them to a wider audience by featuring them on our Festival blog. In uploading your images to Flickr, you also share the Folklife Festival experience with virtual Festival visitors around the world.

If you want to upload and share your own images of the 2012 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, it’s not too late! Check out our Flickr Group here.

A big thank you to all of the photographers and videographers who shared their work on Flickr this year! We look forward to seeing more of your wonderful images online next summer when you visit the 2013 Smithsonian Folklife Festival.

Ariel Fielding is a former Folklife Festival Fellow in Community and Online Engagement. A lifelong photographer, Ariel built her first pinhole camera at the age of six, and learned to use a darkroom at the same age.