Jacksonville, Florida Photographer Ranked 5th in State
and Best In Show / Commercial
Competing with Florida's top professional photographers in the Florida Professional Photographers' Annual Print Competition, I am pleased to announce that my work was awarded 14 merits, a Best In Show in the Commercial Category, two First Place Awards, and three Distinguished Awards. (Distinguished Awards are for 2nd/3rd place images.)
Included in this year's FPP awarded imagery is a collection of my pet photography, photojournalism, environmental portraits, and digital art.
Dog Images First!
Fierce and Fabulous
Distinguished Award / Pet Portraits
This magnificent Doberman Pinscher is "Zena" and her image was taken as a client image. Zena is an amazing dog and has more titles after her name than I really thought possible. She is also a registered therapy dog and before COVID19 hit us all, she was a regular visitor to local health facilities with her equally as amazing owner.
Schohaus Winter Zenith v Azar CDX, BN, RM, SCA, SIN, SBN, RATN, CGCA, TKP
Merited Pet Portraits
Gonna Share That?
Merited Image / Pet Portrait
Oh my goodness, this is sweet Darla.
Darla is a registered therapy dog who lives to charm the patients at a hospital in Eastern North Carolina. This image was taken as part of a series of images that I photographed of therapy dogs who work at the hospital. All the therapy dog images are framed and hang in the entryway to the hospital.
Never Cross a Ginger
Merited Image / Pet Portraits
This image was photographed as part of Suki's "Gotcha Day" portrait session, celebrating her birthday. Suki, a Vizsla with a big personality, of course, had to give me her signature toothy look.
And that was all I needed to create a competition image of her.
She is pretty much as she was SOOC (straight out of camera), except I chose to paint the background so that it went with her beautiful red and gold tones.
Uh... Wasn't Us...
Merited Image / Pet Portraits
What's not to love about three Boxers--especially when one has on toenail polish.
This image was originally taken as part of a fundraising day for a local Boxer Rescue. I loved it so much, I thought I'd see how it would do in print compeitition.
And as a side note, no, these three were not the perfect angels you see in this image.
They. Are. Boxers.
THE BIG WINNING IMAGE !
Boys Unlatched
BIS Commercial
1st Place Photojournalism
This image was taken in New Delhi, India (prior to the COVID19 pandemic) and is one of my favorite photojournalism images I have taken. I think it shows no matter where you are, what language you speak, what religion you practice, that a smile is universally recognized.
The Back Story...
A large part of my photographic business is editorial, and this image was photographed for a magazine travel photo/feature on India. I was in a bicycle taxi on the busy streets of New Delhi and I spotted this bicycle-powered school bus. The boys were headed home and they were having a wonderful time. Why not? They were finished for the day!
The boys spotted me and I waved to them. They waved wildly and were giggling and THEN I noticed it... They had UNLATCHED the back of the bus. I'm not sure if they were planning a mid-street escape or if they were just being silly but the bus driver/bicyclist knew something was up and in this series of images, I was able to capture one where you can see the driver giving the boys "the eye."
This image was 1st place in Photojournalism and was awarded Best In Show for Commercial Images.
ANOTHER 1ST PLACE WINNER
Walk of Memories
1st Place / Environmental Portrait
I love this image. I have it in color, hanging in my dining room, printed on canvas and embellished with a beautiful, heavy Italian-crafted gold frame.
This image has special meaning to me as the couple walking down to the aisle were doing so for the first time since they were married in that cathedral 50 years ago.
And they are my parents.
The church is the Heiliggeistkirche (Church of the Holy Spirit) in Heidelberg, Germany. My parents were the first Americans to be married in this tremendous cathedral. The Heiliggeistkirche was built on the site of a late Roman basilica that was first mentioned in writings in the early 1200s. I don't know if any of the most ancient church still exists in the present day church; however, records indicate that in 1398, the oldest church was replaced with construction of the beginnings of today's church.
Heiliggeistkirche is a late Gothic period cathedral, which was mostly completed in 1441; however, the church tower wasn't begun until 1508--the views of from which of Heidelberg are well worth the climb to the top.
The Capture...
So, interesting side story... my brother, also a photographer, was on this anniversary trip with my parents, too. Being photographers, we EACH thought we were going to photograph my parents' portrait at the alter on this momentous occasion. Except I was curtly informed by my brother that HE was taking the portrait. Sulking a bit, I hung out at the back of the church to be out of the way when I realized WHAT I was seeing. My parents hadn't walked that aisle TOGETHER in 50 years. And I spotted a beautiful pool of light that they were going to walk directly into in just moments.
I scrambled to get my settings where I wanted them, prayed that the tourist -- THE ONLY ONE -- who was walking around the alter would leave (she did), and waited.
They entered the pool of light, I took the handheld image and immediately a busload of tourist walked right in front of me.
DISTINGUISHED AWARD-WINNING IMAGES
Bath Time on the Ganges
Distinguished Award / Photojournalism
"Bath Time on the Ganges" was photographed for a magazine travel feature story and was taken in Varanasi, India. The challenges in capturing this image included begin on a small boat on the Ganges River that was being rowed and rocked quite a bit, as well as photographing this image in the predawn/dawn minutes with a heavy fog on the water.
It was not an easy image to capture as I had to wait for the boat to move into the right angle on a moving river, as well as capture everything that was going on at the time.
Look closely at the image to see a little surprise on the top right and why I had to crop it where I did. :)
An interesting side note: I went out on the river again at night to see a large Hindu ceremony from the water. Everyone packed the ghats to the Hindu priests in the ceremony and the water was packed even more with boats blocking each other in up to 20 boats deep to the shore. After the boat tour of the ceremony, I went back to my hotel. I wasn't in my room but a the 20 seconds needed to dial up on video chat with my husband, when a huge explosion went off that literally bowed my hotel window room and nearly knocked me off my chair. It felt as if my chest had been compressed for a split second. Then a second explosion. And minutes later, a third.
It was a terrorist attack on the Hindu ceremony I had just left -- and it had many injured with fatalities.
After that attack, travel throughout India took on a new level of security -- and as you can imagine, every camera, lens and piece of gear I owned was scrutinized (as it should have been).
Watching His Taillights Disappear
Distinguished Award / Environmental Portrait
This image was taken in Camden, Alabama. We were originally going to shoot in front and around a beautifully restored antebellum mansion; however, as we were setting up, I asked my client if she would mind taking a few images on the antebellum home next to where we were shooting because I had something I wanted to try.
She was more than happy to oblige me. The sun was low with the trees dapping the columns on the oval porch... It was hot and we all had sweat dripping where no respectable Southern lady should have sweat pooling... And there was not much time to nail the image.
So, I asked her to sit on the porch and give me a specific look. I told her that I wanted her to look as if she'd been stood up at the alter and that if her former fiancé had the nerve to turn around, she was going to shoot him.
The image is hanging as a large framed fine art print in the entryway to her home. (And her husband enjoys it, too.)
AWARD-WINNING ART
Pink Slip
Merited Image / Artist
This image is my first merited painted image that I have ever entered in print competition at the state level. And since I only started learning how to paint digitally (using a Wacom tablet, art pen and Photoshop) seriously roughly a month before this was painted, I'm pretty proud of this one.
To clarify, I painted and drew "organically" (the messy type of painting) since I was a small child. I was the kid who not only went to sports camps and lived and breathed everything horses and dogs, but I also went to watercolor camps and loved to paint with colored charcoals and acrylics.
Fast forward to now when I decided to finally learn how to use Photoshop to paint (I had tried off and one and more off than on in Corel Painter and never had any success wrapping my head around that program).
So, the Artist category is judged not only on the quality of your painting (or composite -- that's another way to compete in Artist) but also on the difficulty of your piece. Reference images are shown as thumbnails on the image that is entered in print competition (removed in this image so that you can see the painting). The reference image for this orchid was taking under low light at a crowded orchid show packed with plants and people.
Veined Disdain
Merited Image / Artist
This is another Artist Image that was painted from a reference image that I photographed at a local orchid show.
As with "Pink Slip," the background was cluttered and busy with an entire wall of orchids that had won awards that day.
This image was digitally painted by hand, using a Wacom tablet, an art pen and Photoshop.
For more information on pet portraiture, please click HERE.