In my second year of the Photographic Technology program at NAIT I was fortunate enough to be able to spend my two week work experience with the amazing Carrie Schechter in New York. One of the biggest pieces of advice she gave was to constantly enter photography competitions; it is such a great way to get your work seen. Well I definitely followed that advice and I am always entering different international and national print/photography competitions. I always look at is as you never know and it would be pretty awesome to win :)

This year I once again entered the PX3 Prix de la Photographie Paris, and was so honored and surprised to have found out I won 3rd place in the Professional Portrait - Wedding Category. My winning series, Prairie Brides, was a personal shoot I did back in the fall with a few models. I once again collaborated with Ange Forhy from Kenneth Blair Hair Salon, who did another phenomenal job with the hair and make up. The series came about as Ange had these amazing veils and we thought why not pair them up with some jeans and tank tops to create a bridal series that would be a little different. And just to push boundaries a little more I created this short series within the whole thing using two of models depicted as lovers per say. Anyways I was so happy with the photos and even more ecstatic to find out that international judges saw something in them that they liked as well!

I've posted part of the press release below as it contains a little more information about the awards themselves :)

The jury selected PX3 2010’s winners from thousands of photography entries from over 85 countries. Px3 is juried by top international decision-makers in the photography industry: Carol Johnson, Curator of Photography of Library of Congress, Washington D.C.; Gilles Raynaldy, Director of Purpose, Paris; Viviene Esders, Expert près la Cour d'Appel de Paris; Mark Heflin, Director of American Illustration + American Photography, New York; Sara Rumens, Lifestyle Photo Editor of Grazia Magazine, London; Françoise Paviot, Director of Galerie Françoise Paviot, Paris; Chrisitine Ollier, Art Director of Filles du Calvaire, Paris; Natalie Johnson, Features Editor of Digital Photographer Magazine, London; Natalie Belayche, Director of Visual Delight, Paris; Kenan Aktulun, VP/Creative Director of Digitas, New York; Chiara Mariani, Photo Editor of Corriere della Sera Magazine, Italy; Arnaud Adida, Director of Acte 2 Gallery/Agency, Paris; Jeannette Mariani, Director of 13 Sévigné Gallery, Paris; Bernard Utudjian, Director of Galerie Polaris, Paris; Agnès Voltz, Director of Chambre Avec Vues, Paris; and Alice Gabriner, World Picture Editor of Time Magazine, New York.

The "Prix de la Photographie Paris" (Px3) strives to promote the appreciation of photography, to discover emerging talent, and introduce photographers from around the world to the artistic community of Paris.

I hope everyone has a most wonderful day/weekend!

Well I survived my week in Vegas, and it was definitely an awesome trip! The trip started out with Scott Robert Lim's workshop, which was per usual, very amazing! But his workshop is my next blog so I will save more details until then! After the workshop WPPI started, it was my first time attending and was it ever fun! I didn't realize how big it is until I arrived, I guess there was over 11,000 photographers in attendence! The first day they held a welcome reception where some of the top photographers photographed different aspects of the wedding to demonstrate how they would work on a wedding day. It was really cool, especially since some of the photographers were Yervant, Bambi Cantrell, and Jerry Ghionis. The next couple of days were filled with amazing and inspiring speakers, David Jay, Bambi Cantrell, Matthew Jordan Smith, and Yervant to name a few, walking around the tradeshow, checking out the award winning prints, and most importantly networking! I met so many wonderful people/photographers and you don't realize how large the photography community is until an event like WPPI! Since this was my first WPPI, it was also my first time entering the print competition and one of the photographs entered won an award of excellence. It was so exciting, over 6000 photographs were entered and what great exposure to have one selected!!! So I am officially an international award winning photographer, which is very cool! Definitely making the website! The photograph that won is shown at the beginning of this blog post! Below I've also posted the pic I took of it with my point and shoot when it was displayed with all the other award winning photographs!
Overall, WPPI was definitely an amazing experience, and I can't wait to go back next year to be inspired and learn more new posing, lighting, marketing ideas, etc. And of course meet more awesome photographers!

This was the welcome reception/mock wedding; below was Yervant taking some photos on the big screen!

Here is my award winning print being displayed with all the other photographs. I had to take a picture as I was pretty excited about it!