Image Competition

Well, this is my first Blog ever on the topic of photography. After all the years of shooting, it’s weird that I’m going to the topic of Professional Photographers of America (PPA) image competition, but that’s where I am right now.

Competition is a strange thing. I though that, as a person from the classical music world, because I was so used to it, that I would go into the image comp, beat me chest, and just be like, “I can take all of your criticism because I made it as a classical trombonist, and that’s good enough. That wasn’t true. Criticism of whatever artistic endeavor you do always hurts.

In relation to music, the world of photography is much kinder. Seriously, people root each other on, pick them up when they're down, go out on photoshoots together, and even look at each others competition images and provide feedback. Crazy…..

Competition has been in my blood since the 7th grade, starting with All-District Band and I pretty much knew what I wan’t to do with my life (at least my former one) since that time. I went from not making All-District Band in 8th grade to making first chair All-State in the state of Kentucky. For reals….

I guess you might be wondering where I’m going with this, right? Well, once I joined the Professional Photographers of America (PPA), I’d heard of image competition before, but I was only interested in the insurance benifits of PPA at that point. For those who don’t know, PPA insures your photography equipment for a really ridicously large amount. That in an of itself is a great reason to join PPA

Honestly, it wasn’t until I joined my state affiliate, Virginal Professional Photographer of America (VPPA) that I learned about image competition. Since that time, my photography really took off in places I’d never dreamed. For instance, things such as bringing back shadow detail, eye catchlights at a specific position, etc, would have ever been on my radar.

Of course, image competition isn’t everything, and as a matter of fact, the stuff I learned from that process/stuff they teach doesn’t have much to do with the way I photograph my clients. However, the image comp process is one in which the maker of an image has to take a step back and look at their work in a very, very critical way.