Awards and Inspiration with PPOC

For the past few days, I've been attending the PPOC (Professional Photographers of Canada) Exposure Symposium put on by the Alberta and Saskatchewan regions. I had finally decided to join and got my membership about two weeks ago. The Symposium was absolutely fantastic for a couple of reasons.

The first reason was the awards. You can submit four photographs for the print salon and one album. When the dust settled, two of the images and the one album I submitted received (accepted) awards. I was told this is really good, especially for someone who's never experienced a PPOC print salon. The two images are below:

Lyndsey who is "Caught in the Wind"


Cheryl and her "Circle of Friends"


In addition, here is the album design for Kathyrn and Andrew's Mountain wedding in Canmore that also was honoured:

Kathryn and Andrew's Album

The photo of Cheryl and her friends was also a top three finalist for the best in class wedding group of the year. I was quite happy with that.

So thanks to all of you out there who helped us grow since we started wedding shooting 11 years ago. Mentors, colleagues, family, friends, and most certainly, our awesome brides and grooms!

The second awesome part of the Symposium was the speakers. They were all awesome, but the two that stood out to me was Scott Robert Lim and Dane Sanders.

Here's me and Dane LOL! (sorry, it's a phone picture)



Scott gave me clues to discover within myself what direction I should grow my photography, and Dane gave me a concrete plan of action to achieve it. The two presentations together really hit it for me and fell into each other. Both are really good speakers and you should jump at the chance to listen to either one.

So also a big hello to my new PPOC friends. I hope I can rely on you for help when I need it, and the door is always open for you if I can help *YOU* out in any way.

Here's looking to an awesome 2010. Rock on!