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.