April 6, 2011
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Award…Milestone…Affirmation…Beginning? | Accolade of Excellence
As I announced recently I was awarded an Accolade of Excellence for one of my prints entered in the Wedding and Portrait Photographers International (WPPI) 16 x 20 print competition. I was reflecting a bit about this and mentioned to my wife that it is very special to me personally for a couple of reasons. Of course it is a great honor to receive this award in light of the how many prints were submitted and the level of difficulty by which they were all judged. But more important to me was that this is one of those milestones. A bit over three years ago I went to my first Scott Robert workshop. At that time I had no aspirations of shooting professionally but merely had wanted to improve my photography skills. Well Scott is a pretty motivating speaker and after that workshop I found myself looking for opportunities to shoot more and gain experience. As I mentioned in my previous posting Brian Ng gave me my first opportunity to shoot as a professional by shooting 2nd for him. He sat me down and each time we went out and looked through my images and gave me feedback. That was one of the most valuable things to me since it really helped me grow by making me think about what I was doing. So what better way to start my journey than to have Scott and Brian combine to provide a very solid foundation. From Scott I get my ability to see and create beautiful light and an understanding of why portraiture is important and how to make unique and timeless images. Brian on the other hand was a true photojournalist in his approach and desired to show the moments that joined together to complete the story of a couple’s special day. Thus for me I feel that a blend of both is the best way to serve my clients, because both serve to record the happenings of the day and also to preserve who they are at that moment in their lives.
So as I was saying this award is a milestone for me because as I embarked on my journey as a professional photographer, I knew that due to my family obligations and life stage I could not pursue photography as a full time profession at this time. But even as I began my journey I knew in my heart that if I were going to do this, part time or not, I did not want that to be an excuse for the level of imagery that I was going to provide to my clients. So in other words, I wanted to be as good as the finest photographers doing this full time. It is quite a tall order since there are many talented photographers out there, but with a solid foundation from my photographic fathers I was on my way. My journey also included searching for ever
more knowledge, determination, and persistence which has brought me to where I am at this moment. You know you are always your worse critic so I often struggled and wondered if I was really producing good imagery. So this accolade is a nice affirmation to let me know that I am able to produce imagery worthy to compete at a world class level. So have I arrived? Well I guess I have arrived at something, one goal perhaps, but really I am just getting started and I desire to continue to grow, explore, and push; all in the hopes of producing better and more meaningful imagery as time goes on.Stay tuned as I actually have more to this post but as it was getting long I decided to split it. So I will post the rest in a day or two.
Comments (2)
Thank you for sharing this heartfelt post! It’s so wonderful to be able to see your story as a photographer. It’s so rewarding to be able to see how far we’ve come and you have certainly made it my friend. Keep striving and continue pushing towards your goals; the best is yet to come
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@Ariane - Thanks for your comment. Ha ha ha….see this is how I knew that you should go to the workshop in Paris. I can’t wait to see where you go from here. I know I am going to keep pushing forward. =)