2009 Detroit Professional Photographer of the Year

I began challenging myself and started entering the International Photographic Competition last year that PPA holds once a year.  I do it for a few reasons; one is to earn merit points towards my master’s degree in photography and the other is to continue to improve and excel in my craft.

PPA’s International Photographic Competition is a world-renowned photographic competition, where entries are evaluated against a standard of excellence (not against each other). PPA states the following as to the benefits of competing:

• Increase your skill and confidence in your craft. Competition forces you to look deeper at your own photography. It helps you see techniques to improve and ideas to try.
• Earn merits towards a Masters Degree. If your entry scores above a certain level, you will earn a merit, which adds up to a PPA degree. And those degrees recognize a level of commitment to and skill in photography.
• Go “Loan.” Your image could score high enough to secure a spot in the International Traveling Loan Collection, which travels to different exhibits and is published in a book.

2010 3rd Place Award with Tom Hicks

Categories to enter in are: commercial, portrait, illustrative, and wedding prints, digital files, and albums.  Our entries presently must fit in a 16×20 space in whatever dimension we opt for inside of those parameters.  I’ve included my four entries exactly how I entered them below.

Last year, my first year, was a very, very good year. Because of the quality of my entries not only was I named Detroit’s Professional Photographer of the Year, but I received merit on three of my prints at the international level and won a coveted ‘loan’ award on one of my entries as well.  I have stared at those Loan Collection books for a long time dreaming of the day I might be good enough to be in one of them.  It was the bar I set for myself and continue to strive for every time I make a photograph.

A year has gone by.  Brad Hawks, of Fenton, is the new DPPA Photographer of the Year.  He’s an amazing artist.  I said good-bye to that big trophy and asked fellow photographer, Janet Schneider, to take a photo of me with it one last time.  I earned third place this year in Detroit.  Even better, out of the four prints I entered at PPA’s internationals, the results last week indicated I merited three out of my four images AGAIN!  No loan print this year.  But everyone tells me that I’ve set the bar pretty high for myself and I need to come back down to earth. 

A huge thank you to my good friends and mentors Dawn Havrelock and Anne Keesor, who are sensational photographers and also merited. They were my critique buddies through the whole process.  In a time when ‘everyone is a photographer’, there are still so many truly wonderful professionals out there who continue to hone their craft, challenge themselves to to go one step further to being the best they can be, and share their talent and knowledge with others.  I am proud to be in the profession I am in.  I wouldn’t trade it for the world.