El Love

So, how many of you photographers out there have submitted an image for competition?

Well, for the first time, I did last week. I’m a member of Professional Photographers of America Northern Illinois (PPANI) which is an affiliate of the national organization Professional Photographers of America (PPA). Four times a year, PPANI hosts a competition for its members. If your image does well at this competition, it has a very good chance of doing well at the national PPA competition held once a year in the winter.

It’s funny all the things that go through your mind when your print is announced and the judging panel, most of whom are master photographers and many are national PPA judges, start to scrutinize your artwork. I start to fidget, and start telling the photographer next to me all the things that I should have done differently with the image, blah, blah, blah…

Then the score is announced–an 81! I’m ecstatic. My image has won a “merit”. Merits are great, merits give you points toward degrees, merits mean that your artwork has been “approved” by a body of judges whose work I strive to compete with. It’s an awesome feeling. But, it lasted for only an instant…

The score was “challenged” by one of the judges. I froze. Oh no, please don’t take my merit away.

A challenge happens when the score of the image has been announced and one of the judges feels that the score should have been much higher or much lower. The challenge judge started speaking… and then it became clear. She wasn’t trying to lower my score, she was challenging the other judges to raise theirs!

During a challenge, all the judges have to respond to the challenging judge on what they voted and why, and if they feel inclined, based on the challenge judge’s comments, to go higher (or lower) with their score. Each judge spoke, and with the exception of one, spoke very positively about the image, told what they voted and what they thought about placing a higher score.

In the end, the print was scored at an 85, making it into the “Excellent” category!

The print was one of the top three scoring prints in the competition, so it competed in the vote for “Best Portrait”…and WON!

I could never have imagined how well this print would score. I realize that I won’t always have such a happy experience competing, but having felt the exhilaration of winning makes me want to “win” again, more than ever before.

This image that won (shown above titled “El Love” was from an engagement session shot in downtown Chicago last fall. The session was a lot of fun because we shot in a lot of different locations on Michigan Avenue–a sidewalk cafe, an alley, the el platform and Millennium Park. The weather was brisk, but I was sweating lugging around all the location gear. The couple did a great job and had chapped lips afterward from all the kissing they did that day! This engagement session was extra special because it was my sister-in-law and her fiance’!

If anyone has comments or questions about competing or about PPANI, please email me through the website.

Girl with Guitar

Spring weather is here, at least for a few days, which means it’s time to start planning for our high school senior pictures for the class of 2011.  So many of our high schools use contract photographers for senior pictures, which in some cases makes sense.  However, for those high school seniors who want to have a truly unique and individual experience during their senior photo session, the high volume, contract photography studio is not the way to go.  Many high school seniors would like the opportunity to have senior pictures taken that will truly reflect who they are at this stage in their life–and you only get to be at that stage one time.  It takes time and a willing, creative photographer to work with each senior to find out the story that senior would like to tell through his/her senior pictures.  If you’re a senior or if you’re the parent of a 2011 high school senior, call us to talk about what makes us different and why you should choose Gilbert Creative Studios for your senior pictures.

And one more thing…We are running an awesome promotion to kick off this year’s high school senior program:

If you are a 2010 or 2011 high school senior and you are passionate about something, anything, like sports, dancing, music, etc., we are shooting special complimentary mini-sessions to the first 5 juniors/seniors who contact us and mention this special.  These sessions last one hour and are shot in studio.  Images from these sessions may be used in future marketing campaigns to high school seniors.  In addition to the complimentary mini-session, each student will receive a complimentary 8X10 print of an image from the session and 3 Facebook images.  If you fit this criteria, call us to schedule your complimentary mini-session now.  Our contact information can be found here:  http://www.gilbertcs.com/contact-us/.

What? You don’t know what that means? Well, let me tell you. In order to become a “CPP” – Certified Professional Photographer you must pass a comprehensive written examination measuring your technical expertise as a photographer and you must submit a sampling of your client work to a panel of judges for review and approval. So as of this week, I passed both.  Whoohoo!

While this has been a somewhat intense journey, I’m so pleased that it has been successfully completed. Well, maybe not totally completed. To keep the CPP designation, each photographer must meet continuing education requirements ensuring that they maintain an unmatched level of expertise and development. Surprisingly, less than 3% of all photographers hold this mark of excellence.

Thanks to all our great clients that allowed us the privilege of photographing them.  It’s been a pleasure!

Speaking of that new softbox, here are a couple of images putting it to good use…

Boy with a Guitar

Boy with an Acoustic Guitar