by successfulbob | fine art photography, photography, photography competition, photography education, success education
Thanks to New Mexico Professional Photographers Association (NMPPA) for hosting a convention of which to be proud. They did a great job. I was there to give a program on art and imaging competition and to help judge the annual print competition. There were a lot of great images.
If you are in the NM area and want to get in on some great learning you should join the organization. Organizations always go through ups and downs and it looks like they are on the ups with a solid board excited about getting quality photo education from photography speakers for their members.
Image made during the NMPPA convention during my ‘Photo-Synthesis’ Photoshop class.
Books, magazines, the web, DVD tutorials, Creative Live & PhotoVision are all great ways to gather photography education!
BUT, nothing beats in-person photo education and networking with fellow photographers and competing in the PPA system of Imaging Competition. A great place to start is with your state Professional Photographers Association whether you are in New Mexico, Arizona or any other state. Not sure where your closest PPA Affiliate is? Find out here.
Yours in Professional Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | photography competition, photography education, success education
I often hear from fellow photographers that they don’t have time for things like imaging competition.
I call BS!
And that brings me to today’s Photo/Art quote from Rich Mann.
“There’s no time like the present, and no present like time.” Rich Mann
I don’t suggest that you take time from your family, but be more efficient with your time at work. There’s a huge difference between being busy and being efficient at your job. I’ve been quite guilty of it at times myself. Thinking that I was too busy to do things and found that non-constructive work habits were not allowing me to get the most important things done while insignificant things were taking up waaaayyy tooooo much time. For some quick ideas I suggest checking out this post from Brian Caporicci on Sprouting Photographeron how a tool meant to save you time, energy and make your life easier has started to become a ball and chain.
That tool’s name is email. And Brian will gives you some solutions to put that bad boy back in place.
…Now what to do with the extra time you just carved out??
HMMM, I know!
Put some time on your schedule to prep 1-2 images a month for competition. Then when the deadline comes around you’ll have plenty of images ready to choose from…
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | Lumix Lounge, marketing, photography, photography competition, photography education, photography marketing, success education
Yesterday I shared the images I entered at the Arizona Professional Photographers Association annual convention. Today I’ll show the awards I received as part of the competition and talk about the marketing value for business.
Emil Eger Photographer of the Year Award for high scoring print case (341 out of 400)
First Place in Masters Portrait, Commercial and Illustrative categories.
American Society of Photographers Award for High scoring image by an ASP member.
AZPPA Top Ten Award for the 15th time in 16 years
OK Bob, big deal, how can this be used in marketing?
I am excited to have earned these designations and will proudly display them in my studio. This is for marketing purposes and what I call a ‘stick’ for when clients walk through the door to be photographed. When people make decisions to spend money they ALWAYS want to be reassured that they have made a good choice on where they’ve decided to spend their hard earned dollars. Seeing the awards gives people more confidence in my skills. Almost everyone comments on my award case… in a good way. Thus they will ‘stick’ with me because of the positive reinforcement of seeing the awards.
Tomorrow I’ll follow up on the next step in making the winning of awards really pay when we chat about press releases.
By the way, as an aside for people who are still on the fence about the quality of Lumix cameras and the micro 4/3rds format… Four of the six images were captured with my Panasonic gear and they scored the highest of my entries.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | bird photography, commercial photography, fine art photography, fine art portrait, people photography, photography, photography competition, photography education, photography marketing
Arizona PPA had it’s convention this past weekend. Of course it included the annual imaging competition and as usual I entered images for feedback on new work I am creating. I am always trying to create new artistic looks and it’s good to get feedback from my peers in a formal setting like imaging competition.
My results were favorable. I was awarded the Emil Eger Photographer of the Year Award, first place in the Masters Commercial, Portrait and Illustrative categories. The American Society Of Photographers award was also presented given for having the highest scoring image by an ASP member. This was the 15th time being named to the AZPPA Top Ten in 16 years.
While receiving awards is good for the ego (and sending press releases) the real value is in receiving opinions of fellow photographers to find flaws that were not apparent when working up the images. I found some things to tweak as a result of hearing the challenges between the jurors during judging…
I’ll share my entries here. Wouldn’t mind some feedback from you too…
‘Awakening’ scored 86
‘Catrina – Day of the Dead’ scored 83
‘Old World Juniper’ scored 81
‘Last Stand’ scored 83
‘Sandhill Cranes’ scored 88
‘Sarasota Polo Magazine Comps’ scored 84
I always recommend getting your images into competition for review. Remember it’s not a competition against the other photographers… It’s against yourself and the opportunity to grow your skills.
Yours in creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | Lumix Lounge, photography, photography competition, photography education
Imaging competition has helped me become the photographer I am today. There I’ve said it again and I’ll continue to sing it from the rooftops and encourage every photographer that want to grow, or continue to grow to participate in two to four imaging competitions a year.
I recommend you choose between your local PPA Affiliate, PPA District Competition, International Photographic Competition and the WPPI 8×10 and 16×20 competitions.
Why??
It stretches you to push your image making to a higher level. It makes you aware of minor mistakes in posing and exposure and composition and the awareness works its way into your everyday captures keeping you from having to deal with the mistakes over and over again.
Making better images leads to better sales.
Making better images leads to winning awards which leads to having an excuse/reason to send out press releases which leads to press coverage and name recognition in your community.
I had a conversation with Skip from Skip Cohen University on the Weekend Wisdom Podcast on Sprouting Photographer about Photographic Imaging Competitions. Check it out.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | photography, photography competition, photography education, video
Was taking a cruise through some of my competition images through the years and it was very interesting to find I had a style when I reviewed the images as a body of work verses seeing them individually. I’ve found that competing at the Professional Photographers of America level has done more to improve my photography than almost anything else. Now with a little review from you I’d like to learn more.
This question came up on a PPA forum, “What is your style?”
It was actually difficult to answer… So here’s a pile of pictures, so to speak, and I’m going to ask you to take a few minutes and share with me your ideas of what my style is… Thanks in advance for your feedback!
I put these images together in slideshow format with ProShow Web. I’ve only just started using it but I’m really liking the interface. Upload the images and it does most of the heavy lifting of building the slideshow by you picking a template that you want to use. You can upload your own music if you have permission too. Cool part is you can watch what it turns out and then go back in and edit it. Very cool! (there’s no video in here but it takes vid clips too!)
These images were gathered from approximately 2005 to present from my digital competition files from
Arizona PPA, Professional Photographers of America and others….Thanks again for your help.Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
