PPOC-AB (Professional Photographers of Canada) had it’s annual print competition and exposure convention last month. I’m aware its a little late to be posting about this now, but we’ve been hustling to get ready for this coming wedding season and we’ve got lots to share soon. I promise.
We’ve been long time members of the Professional Photography Association of Canada. Gord’s actually served a two year term as the president for Alberta and has earned him self numerous awards over the years. Shaun and I are starting to jump in and become more active members. We’ve also had some success in the competitions held over the years. Last year one of my images won Portrait of the year! This year all three of us had at least two of our images accepted into the 2011 print salon and one of Shaun’s images even earned a merit.
The PPOC print competitions are judged by a pannel of 5 accredited photographers, who’ve have taken the associations judging course. There are numerous categories for each field of photography and every image submitted (180 this year) is critiqued on its technical and artistic qualities. Images selected to be part of the print salon for the year can be given either an accepted status, merit status or excellence status (kind of like bronze, silver, & gold). The critique room is open for photographers to sit in on. We sit in a small dark quite room, while listing to what the judges think of the images. Its exciting, frustrating, and educational all at the same time. At the end of the weekend the winning images are announced as well as the photographers of the year at a fancy awards gala. This year our friend Robert Bray won for portrait photographer of the year
It was a great weekend with two fantastic speakers who’ve inspired and excited us for this coming season! New York’s Susan Stripling was amazing. Her work is gorgeous and her personality was a breath of fresh air! She was honest about our industry and the amount of work that’s involved if we want to make it our careers. Jason Groupp who’s also from NY talked to us about his lighting techniques and how they can help to make an image look edgy and stand out. He was personable and fun to listen to. Gord always says that if we can walk away from a seminar or workshop with at least one piece of information to implement into our work, then it was worth it. We definitely took more than one piece.
Another bonus at these conventions is we get to hang out with other photographers in our community. We’re lucky to have such a positive group of professionals whom we can call friends. We’re able to learn from each other and collectively become a stronger photography community.
Here are the images we submitted. Wish us luck in Banff at Nationals! We’re planning to enter some of our Iceland images
Steph
This is Steph’s from Last year.
‘Summer Glow’- Merit – 2010′s Portrait of the Year
.jpg "Summer Glow")
Steph’s: ‘Nestled’ – Accepted
Steph’s: ‘Lay With Me’ – Accepted
.jpg "Lay with me")
Steph’s: ‘Back of the Bus’ – Accepted
Gord’s: ‘Calm in the City’ – Accepted
Gord’s: ‘I’ve got Your Back’ – Accepted
Shaun’s: ‘In the Trees’ – Merit
Shaun’s: ‘Calm in Chaos’ – Accepted
He put his ski pants to good use. 
Erik Hornung - congrats! all stunning images! especially love that first one!
Erik - congrats! all stunning images! I especially love the first one.