Do you ever wonder who the voice is at the other end of the phone? Who sends out the emails? Who process your dues payment?
Well, meet the answer to those questions… The Three Ladies. For some reason, that’s just what we call them.
Please meet Sharon, Susan and Kristin – the force behind all the work that gets done. These ladies will be at the registration desk all day, every day during convention. Stop by and say “hello” and “thank you.” I bet if you brought some chocolate with you, you’d earn bonus points 🙂
One of the cool events at convention is the big party on Saturday night (March 22 8:30PM – 12:30 AM). That’s the night where awards are passed out for the annual image competition as well as some organizational awards for service. After that’s over, the fun will continue on for several hours with beverages, food and music.
Hosting this event is the outgoing President, Tom Walter and his wife Cheryl, pictured here.
The president gets to choose a theme for the party, so President Tom has chosen a Luau theme. This past winter has been entirely too long and we’re just gonna pretend we’re at a poolside cabana somewhere in the tropics.
Join in the fun, pack a Hawaiian shirt and come to the party. Each person “dressed” for the Luau gets a free drink ticket AND you may be awarded the prize for the Ugliest Hawaiian Shirt.
When you’re at the party, find Tom, introduce yourself and thank him for a job well-done during the 2013-2014 year.
One of the very cool things that not everyone knows about is that each convention signals the stepping down of one president and the stepping up of another. There is an official “pass the gavel” ceremony somewhere for formality, but more often than not, there’s a couple of other cool things involved that you’ll want to participate in. One of those is obtaining an incoming presidential pin. If you meet the new incoming president during convention, ask him for a pin and he/she will give you one. Pretty soon, you’ll have a nice little collection of convention bling, AND you will have met a member of the leadership team for the next year.
I know it’s difficult being at convention for the first time, so here’s your first assignment, find the incoming president, introduce yourself and then ask him for a pin.
To make this job a lot easier for you, I’m going to help you out. Next year’s president will be Steve Busch and he looks like this. He is pictured here with his wife, Julie, who is also a member of our Board of Directors.
Stay tuned for more first-timer hints, tips and tricks.
Oh, hello! Brush the dust off the chair and take a load off. It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?
It’s 2014 and I didn’t bother with the resolution nonsense, it never amounts to much and with my ADD personality… let’s just say weekly resolutions are more my speed.
I spent last week in Phoenix, AZ for Imaging USA, the PPA’s national convention. One of the activities I volunteered for was to be a mentor for the Student Photographic Society. For several hours I reviewed portfolios of some very talented students. One of the lessons I learned during this time was that I completely suck at shooting for myself.
Time and time again, a cohesive body of work was placed in front of me. Work that wasn’t the same client’s face in 7 outfits in front of 9 backgrounds, but work with a theme, with meaning, with some intrinsic value other than sales orders.
And I was impressed. And inspired. To what? That remains to be seen, but I’m thinking. A variety of personal projects are forming. I’ll keep you updated.
Meanwhile – I’d like to share one of the projects I was fortunate enough to critique.
This body of work, entitled “Keepsake” was the thesis of Taylor BFA graduate Katie Yuen. She’s a pretty cool chick. And she shoots film. With a Hasselblad. Yeah, that kind of cool. I liked how she approached her project and I was intrigued with a collection of portraits that contained no faces. Challenging. Inspiring. Wootnessy!
Katie’s Bio:
Katie Yuen is a 2013 graduate of Tyler’s BFA Photography program. Born in New York City, raised in the Pocono Mountains and educated in the City of Brotherly Love, She will be adding to the Tyler Alumna on the west coast in San Diego, California the summer of 2013. Katie is a fine art wedding and portrait photographer when she isn’t shooting in black and white film with her Hasselblad. She loves a good cup of tea, dark chocolate and her cat, Finnegan. Smiling is her favorite.
I have this thing, this cold piece of metal that once belonged to you. At one point in time it served as a lighter, but try as I might, (and being your granddaughter, I mightily tried), I was unable to set it to working order.
So, it sits.
And I wonder… where did it come from? Was it a gift? I remember you lighting your cigarettes with it when I was growing up. Tareytons. Remember? You’d send me with a note to the Twin City Pharmacy “Please give Christine a pack of Tareytons and put it on my account.” Back when stores had accounts. And it was ok for clerks to hand across a pack of cigarettes to a 10 year old.
My god, woman, I miss the hell out of you. I was just telling Dwight yesterday how much I regret the fact that you two never met. You would have loved each other.
RCE.
Rosalind Christine Eisenman.
I am the C. Well, you were the C first, then you gave the C to Aunt Ellen and then my mother gave the C to me. I also got the R. Kinda sorta. Just the R, not your whole first name.
Renee’. What’s that? Who’s that? I’d have rather had Rosalind, just so you know. Aunt Rosalind got that. Which is cool. If you were alive now, I’d have to ask, though, what were you thinking with mom? Edith? No offense, just curious.
I’m glad I have this. This non-functional lighter. Woah, hey, what a claim to fame, eh? But I am. I like knowing that at one time you held this, and made it warm by the heat of your hand. Perhaps you handed it to grandpa and he lit your cigarette for you. Did he buy it for you? It seems like an expensive and frivolous gift for a depressions-era couple. Perhaps you bought it yourself with money you won at the track, who knows? But I like knowing it was yours. And when I touch it, I think about you and what you might have been thinking one of the times you used it.
I remember stories you told me about being a single lady in the flapper days. I must confess, I picture you in black silk and fringe with a long string of pearls. Perhaps a flirty feather in your hair, with a cigarette holder placed delicately at your lips, awaiting the handsome Gastby-esque suitor to light the cigarette you will delicately feign to inhale.
“Tis the season… for shopping and baking and vacationing and celebrating… and donation requests. With the cover story that this is the time of year the budgets are set, but with the ulterior motive that the holiday season will put you in a generous mood – this seems to be the season for donation requests.
In the beginning, I donated to just about everyone that asked. I supported a variety of groups and organizations all in the name of some cause. I was sure this would be a win-win situation and wootness would abound.
Over the years, I began to notice that certain situations just didn’t work out well. Session certificates for raffles & door prizes were losers. I found better success with donating to fund-raising auctions, and the best results were from the live auctions as opposed to the silent ones.
Some groups were easier to work with than others. Some asked that the donation have a certain value. Most didn’t let me know who the end recipient was and hardly any wrote thank you notes. Sometimes the resultant session was a joy, sometimes it was a train wreck.
There’s been a lot of articles out there about how to choose who to donate to and what things work if you’re a photographer – that’s all been hashed out – so here’s just a few extra of my own personal pointers on the matter:
Don’t feel obligated to donate to everyone that asks. Pick the causes that mean something to you, the ones that are near and dear to your heart. So, if the recipient turns out to be a bit of a hassle or if the organizers didn’t get around to doing thank you notes, you’re not all bent out of shape about it. You don’t ever want to regret a donation. You may not love it, or even like it, but arrange it so you never regret it. You want to give from the goodness of your heart and feel good about it after it’s all said and done.
You don’t have to donate photography services. If a cause is holding a fundraiser where the audience just isn’t your target market, or you’re not in a position to donate a session, but you really want to support the cause, donate a tangible item, like a frame or a photo album, or just write a good old-fashioned check. Or here’s a novel idea, donate your time. Volunteer. You’re good for other things besides holding up a camera.
It’s called a donation, not a discount. For the most part, you’re probably going to be donating a certificate or coupon of some sort. I’ve heard a lot of variations on this and one thing I want to really drive home is that a donation is a donation. There should not be any strings attached and the recipient should have something tangible to take home. Donating a $50 gift certificate to your studio, when your minimum purchase/package is $500, will not endear you to anyone. Do not require an additional purchase for the recipient to walk out of your studio with something in their hands.
Do not upsell. The overall intent to upsell or make money off of a donation just makes me cringe. Donate because you want to help and not because it might turn into an income opportunity. Make your certificate good for a session and a product/package, go through the process, deliver the agreed upon product and shut up.
This advice probably won’t sit well with some – but think about this – if you donated a certificate for a session/package that was auctioned off – that new client has already paid a sum of money for what’s on that certificate. Now maybe they got a good deal and maybe they didn’t. I’ve had bidders pay more than the value of the certificate because they supported the cause and they wanted the certificate that badly. Any attempt at upselling to these folks is going to be offensive. They already paid. What they paid is not your business. The donation is between you and the organization, not you and the certificate recipient, so looking to the recipient as a source of income to recoup your donation is misguided and ill-advised.
Go above and beyond what you’ve obligated to. If you want to guarantee that a donation will be a totally win/win situation, go those extra steps to assure that your donated sessions are such a spectacular example in hassle-free customer service that the recipient is well pleased, and in turn tells others about their fantastic experience with you.
The title of this article is a bit misleading, as the space allotted to the right of having letters behind your name will be minimal. It’s not a debatable topic. Every set of letters has a requirement; if you met those requirements, you are entitled/have a right to slap those babies behind your name and have a margarita. Wootness! Celebrate and be proud.
Letters signify hard work and achievement. Each set is different, but the common denominator is competency. In some area, you have proven that you have a set of defined skills that were demonstrated consistently. You are great at something. Awesome! High Five!
And the really cool bonus is that you now have a legitimate reason to get new business cards. Yay! I know I get tired of mine long before I run out.
But, on to the nuts and bolts…
Letters behind your name is a privilege. Of higher importance than you may think. Or realize.
I’m pretty new to the industry, the professional part of it, anyway. I still am in awe of those who have achieved levels of distinction within the PPA. Letters behind the name has always been impressive, for me. I come from a background where letters after your name are the norm. I get it. So, I know that those letters indicate that the recipient has gone above and beyond and is deserving of a certain level of respect, whether I know them or not.
But it seems I may be in the minority with this pattern of thinking. Perhaps I may even be wrong.
I love the PPA’s certification and degree system as well as their print competitions. Where else can you reach levels of competency with the encouragement, help and congratulations of the others that have gone there before you? Only in print competition do I rejoice when I someone I know scores a 100 after I scored a 74. We aren’t competing against each other, we are competing against ourselves. Likewise with the letters behind our names – these are journeys we forced ourselves to travel and accomplishments of our own doing. We were not judged against others or held in comparison to earn them.
It’s so rewarding to watch someone as they work towards their letters. Whether it be the aspiring Craftsman who is refining his program and putting out feelers for folks who need speakers, the maker working towards a master/master artist degree, merit by merit, or the CPP candidate studying their heart out for the exam. You watch and you cheer and you help, if you can. And boy howdy it’s awesome when they get there. Even if I have not been in their shoes, I know how hard a journey can be and how sweet an accomplishment feels.
But, it’s so disappointing to see those with bright, shiny letters turn on others without them. Or compare their letters with others. My heart hurt when I heard someone describe a Master’s Degree as less desired and important than the CPP. Both are important in their own way and have their own challenges and level of difficulties, but in my opinion, have no comparison to each other and cannot be and should not be placed in a ranking order. The conversation was offensive and did not reflect well on the CPP.
A bit of tactful education went a long way in the above situation, but I’m very concerned about this as it seems to be a growing attitude.
It’s not a “who’s better?” kind of thing. I look at it as a “so awesome you joined our club!” kind of thing.
I’m saddened when I hear the “all that and a bag of chips red-headed stepchild with a chip on their shoulder” attitude. Designations and letters behind your name are AWESOME and we should be holding out the hand of help right now and paying that privilege forward, not doing the “I’m better than you” dance.
When I am called for a type of photography that I do not do, I recommend other photographers in my area with PPA credentials. I just do. I want my fellow professionals to succeed. I do the same thing when I’m under consideration for a job. If the client indicates that they are shopping around, I list the CPPs and Master Photographers in my area for them. If they’re gonna shop around, I want them to have some quality-based options.
Maybe I’m weird. Maybe I’m out to lunch. Maybe I’m just flat out wrong. It wouldn’t be a first time for any of the three.
I have a couple of personal fan clubs in my head for photographers that I admire. Most are Masters in the PPA, some are Fellows in the ASP. They are all good photographers and persons I aspire to be like. I recommend that colleagues of mine shooting similar styles and subjects check out their work and I defer to them as experts in their particular area(s) of specialization. I follow their blogs, their work, their posts and their competition results. I don’t pester them, I’m just a fan.
The common denominator amongst them is that they ALL have letters after their names.
And when one of them used the words “bragging,” “conceited” and “self-aggrandizing” in their communication with me, I was shocked. I cried. I looked up “self-aggrandizing” and cried some more. And then I stopped communicating. I stopped answering emails, posts and telephone calls. I stopped writing.
I wanted to die. For a week, at least. It was the lowest and darkest place I have been in, in a very long time. I shut down my social media accounts for over a month and retreated from all interaction with others. Wootness limped by with a couple of pre-written drafts, and what you are reading is the first article I’ve written in 81 days.
That’s kind of sad.
And absurd.
It is absurd that I placed someone I didn’t know on such a high pedestal that they were able to crush my spirit with a few sentences. It is absurd that I placed those with initials behind their names in such high regard based on that, alone. There’s a name in front of those initials and it belongs to a person. And not every person is a nice person. I disregarded the person and gave respect based on letters.
And even though I did nothing wrong, I am changed. I have learned lessons. It’s so unfortunate that the lessons you learn the most from are the ones that are the most painful. And sometimes just downright unnecessary.
So those of you with some hero-worship going on, take the letters with a little grain of salt.
And those of you with the letters – be careful. Please, please, be careful. You have been given a privilege. Cherish it. There’s a level of responsibility and professionalism that goes with the territory. Letters behind your name need honored. And you honor them by remembering what it took to get there. You pay it forward, like those who helped you. You kindly educate with them, not use them as a weapon. And never forget that you wear them – like a mantle, like a crown. Long after the medallion is put away after convention weekend, you still bear the responsibility of professionalism and respect. To those who have completed the journey and those who have just begun.
Shawn & Willard Jones of Jones Photography, Mayfield, KY at their Mentor Booth Appointment with PPA Affiliated Judge, Gregg Wurtzler from OH.
2013 was my first trip to IUSA. It was an important event in my photographic career, I was receiving my Master’s Degree, so I was going to make this trip the absolute best it could be. I volunteered to help set up the print exhibit and work the ASP booth, and I attended several CPP meetings and proctored the new exam. But aside from the awards ceremony, the most important appointment I had was on Sunday morning at the Mentor Booths. For 15 minutes I was granted the undivided attention of an affiliated judge. For FREE. I had no choice in who that judge was to be, it was the luck of the empty seat that found me sitting with a pile of my work at the booth of Rene Genest.
I was nervous. I was soon to receive my Master’s Degree, but at times I wondered what was next. What should I do to expand my talent, work on my skills, take me to the next level?
I brought 11 enlargements with me, the images that had all merited and loaned to earn me 14 merits in 3 years. My “Master’s Collection, if you will.
In the collection were two sets of puppies, two women, one family and six men. Three of the images were high key and eight were low key. Five were color, Six were black and white. I was worried I was getting in a low key rut.
I also brought along two competition prints I was working on for the upcoming Northeast District – more low key men portraits. A real “theme” was forming in my work and I was getting a little nervous. I needed advice about the overall direction I was going in and what I should do next to keep from pegging myself and my style into the low-key male portrait genre.
I also found, to my great surprise, that I tended to do a lot of black and whites. That was never my intent, but I enjoyed the fact that this was developing into part of my “look”, but again, I was worried that I had myself too focused in one area.
So, I was looking forward to my mentor booth meeting with great expectation and excitement.
And I was not to be disappointed.
I’m sure I was talking a mile a minute and Mr. Genest probably thinks I mainlined an entire pot of coffee before meeting with him, but 15 minutes, while a generous amount of time, didn’t seem nearly enough to adequately cover all my questions. Or so I thought. It worked out quite well, in the grand scheme of things, though…
So… we’ll cut to the chase….
Rene looked at my work, talked to me for a bit and challenged me. He agreed that I was getting into a bit of a low-key, black and white groove… but he pointed out that black and white can be high key as well… and it can be toned…. and that these were two options that I might try and explore to get out of my box and expand within the style I had begun to create.
Ahhhhh!!!!!! I “got” that. I understood that. I could DO that. Although the high key suggestion really caught me off guard, I had shot it before and could light it fairly successfully, it just wasn’t a “go-to” setup for me.
I thought a lot about what Rene talked to me about. It was probably the most important 15 minutes of the entire event for me. [OK, aside from that little walk across stage on Tuesday night to get my degree. 🙂 ]
I flew home from IUSA on January 23 and the deadline for Northeast District was March 15. But before that, was my own state’s deadline of mid-February. I needed to get a plan in place for two more images…
I also decided that instead of waiting for a judge to challenge me, I should also be trying to look more objectively at my work overall, identify my areas of weakness and challenge myself, too.
One of the things that I find myself doing when working on competition prints as well as client work, is avoiding poses that involve the hands. I just don’t like posing hands, there are certain ways to do it correctly and more often than not, I find myself submitting images for competition that do not include the subject’s hands because I don’t feel I have a proper grasp of it.
“OK,” I thought, “if I’m going to rise to a challenge – I’m going to make it a challenge worth rising to.”
I’ll admit, at this point I got a little cocky. Before this, I had only entered client work into competition, but now I was going to create something specifically FOR competition. I was going to break out of this little low-key box I had myself stuffed into and I. WAS. GOING. TO. SHOW. THEM.
I have no clue who *THEM* was or what I was going to show, but, I was riled up and when this chick gets riled up… well… it’s interesting, to say the least.
So, for one image, I was going to experiment. I was going to take my mentor booth advice and RUN with it…..
High key…check….. toned black and white… check… use hands…. ugh…. check….
I racked my brain… models, concepts, ideas…. it had to be more than a head shot if I was to include hands…. it had to be high key….I began drawing lighting diagrams and deciding on how much of the body should be in the image … high key… hands… high key… hands…
Suddenly, I had an inspiration!
Several years ago, while practicing some lighting, one of my muses, Alex was at the studio helping me out by modeling. Alex is an actor-friend of mine and has done this a few times for me and was part of my CPP portfolio back in 2009. Alex is very stylish and has a series of silver rings he wears sometimes. He had commented that he had a friend that just didn’t care for all his rings and he thought a photo showing them all off would be kind of humorous. He was right, we messed around with some “vogue” poses and came up with this:
Now, I think we can all point out a number of things wrong with this – but it was from March 2009, four years ago, while I was still studying to pass my CPP exam, so…
So, with the above idea as a base, I set about correcting all the things that were wrong and adding in the challenges from Rene as well as my self-imposed ones, and came up with this:
It was a risk, a huge one. For me. I was so uncomfortable with this image in competition – it was so “out of my box” that I didn’t know what to expect. Fortunately, It did well at my state and then at district and eventually, I was tickled to learn it had been chosen for the Loan Collection at IPC 2013. If it weren’t for my IUSA Mentor appointment, I would have never tried higher key images. Well, at least not that soon. I’m enjoying exploring a variety of black and white experiments, although I still have a deep and abiding love for low-key. I’m glad that I made the appointment, and I learned more in that 15 minutes and the resulting challenge than I have in a very long time. I’m prepping for IUSA 2014, and you can bet I’ve got a Mentor Booth appointment. PPA Members can request a Mentor Booth appointment here: http://www.ppa.com/membership/content.cfm?ItemNumber=2214
I’m changing things up. Texts and emails are out. Handwritten notes and phone calls are in. I’m ditching devices and emails for convenience and replacing with personal service. It’s got to be an improvement over where things are right now.
I miss phone calls. And letters. And people that just knock on the door because they’ve decided to pop over for a visit.
I miss looking someone in the eye when I have a conversation with them. Most often times, I chat to someone’s forehead while they check their email on their smartphone.
I miss having conversations that don’t contain three letter acronyms – I don’t ever remember using the word LOL while speaking, anyway.
I miss thank you notes.
I miss catching up with someone and not using the phrase “I saw on Facebook that you …”
While I appreciate the expediency and ease by which we can connect with others through social and electronic media, I mourn the loss of a society that communicated. Really communicated.
I blame Twitter for the overall reduction in attention span. Somehow we’ve learned to write in concise 140 character “tweets,” unfortunately, we’ve also stopped paying attention to written words that exceed that length. If you don’t believe me, try putting some important information at the end of your next email.
I blame the internet, overall, for providing a venue whereby communication has thrown off any appearance of class and gentility in a society where its members sit behind screens in a protective cloak of anonymity. Careless thoughts that would never cross our lips in spoken conversations will trickle through our fingers via the keyboard to be eternally incised into electronic history as soon as the “enter” button is pushed.
We’ve become immune, or hardened to the effect our hastily clicked words have on others. It’s too easy to quickly type or text out a snippy response to someone before cooling down.
I miss letters. Handwritten ones. Ones that do not have half the words shortened into some sort of elementary school kid code and “CUL8TR” is nothing more than some random typographical error.
I miss the days when my email inbox was actually filled with a thoughtful note from a friend instead of the spewing of spam, email “blasts” and scams designed to part me with my money.
When I hear Facebook referred to as “social media” I can’t help but laugh with bitterness – Facebook has to be damn near the most Anti-Social mechanism in existence. It’s great for finding people you’ve lost contact with, but it is a very poor substitute for maintaining a real social connection with anyone else. It provides us with a false sense of community – for example, I have over 1600 “friends.” Now I sure as heck don’t have 1600 friends in real life. What I have is 1600 people who are in some way associated with someone associated with someone else I may or may not have met in person.
Today I was doing a Google search on my name, just checking to see what showed up in the image search, and this blast from the past showed up:
Wow! This is an image I shot somewhere in the early 1990’s. I was walking around my yard, saw a leaf on the ground, ran in the house & got some masking tape and taped it up to an old barn door. I probably took 2-3 frames of it and then went on to something else.
Later, I entered it in a local amateur group’s photography contest and it won 1st place in its category.
Almost a decade later, it was printed in the October 2002 issue of Petersen’s Photographic. I got paid $25 and 10 copies of the magazine.
Wow. My first publication. I still have a small stack of magazine copies left, but have since lost the negative.
As I was reminiscing, I tried to remember what camera I shot it with and that’s when I remembered….. and I began to laugh.
OMG! I used to shoot Canon! I’d forgotten, I think I must have buried it deep in my subconscious. At one point I did have an X-370 kit – but the camera that captured this image was something more important than that – a special camera that came out and was totally new and unique compared to any other camera…
… drumroll please….
it was taken with the Canon Photura:
So, dear Canon friends, this is why I just can’t return to the fold… THIS was my Canon experience. 😉
