Back to FPP Awards for 2009

A Message from Guild President Marty Grivjack

One Word: PROUD!!!

As an “Association” President, I never sat so tall as when I was at this year’s FPP Awards Banquet representing PPGPB.

For those of you who couldn’t be at this year’s FPP convention, you, along with the rest of us who attended and witnessed the Awards Banquet, would have been absolutely in awe. In fact, we need to buy the Guild a Broom, as we practically swept the awards (see our website at www.ppgpb.org for the laundry list of awards)!

So, Congratulations to Julie Hughes, Photographer of the Year, Becker Award winner, First Place Social Event Formal, Fuji Masterpiece (two awards!) and so many others that she never sat down, her dinner went cold, someone absconded with her dessert, and maintenance had to come in with hydraulic jacks for her table to support all the bling she collected!

Tom Winter received First Place (Sandbar) and Distinguished (St. Lucie Blvd.) in Illustrative Landscape, and Tom, Julie, Sandra and Marybeth Hamberger’s entries on behalf of the Guild took the InterSection Print Competition to the max and won the State award for First Place over Orlando (2d) and Gainesville (3rd). This is a first for our Guild. We got talent! Ever so proudly and staid, Sandra Pearce received the Peoples Choice Award (Fight To The Finish), a Distinguished (Cool Under Fire) for Electronic Imaging, and she received her FDAE degree to boot... wow. Wait, don’t change that channel, there's more! Dick Robertson, our debonair (you gotta see him in a suit), accomplished in-house lighting and portraiture expert from Connecticut (via Vero Beach), formally received our Guild's Outstanding Service Award. To our delight, Dick, along with his ever-lovely bride and long time photography partner Marcia were able to attend the awards banquet and receive the award in person. Many of Dick’s longtime friends were there, and it was great to see him sharing fish-foto stories with all his “old” buddies.

This only means one thing...DYNASTY! Let’s make it a tradition and take on the burden of a full-court press to do it again in 2010! We’ve got incredible talent in this Guild, insightful mentors (yeah, we mean YOU, Dick!), and the continued sharing of the wealth of knowledge is one of our best assets.

Another note on FPP Competition: If you want to compete, or want to upgrade your work to State competition quality, you must attend the jurying of images, wherever or whenever it is. Listen carefully to what the jurors say, how certain elements invoke emotional responses, that, once a conversation starts, can sometimes take an merit print and elevate it to 91 (Superior) and First Place the more they look at and discuss the image. This happened to Peter Burg’s Children Of Havana. In fact, the banter over this image went on for over a half hour. See it at www.fpponline.org

To that extent, look at your work closely. Look at the details. Do they continue to tell the story, or take away from it? Is there any single element you spot in your image that you would deliberately place? Does it contribute positively? If not, get rid of it. Less sometimes is more. Don’t distract. Subtract. Add. Focus. Tell the story. If it makes you feel uneasy, it probably will affect a judge the same way. Turn the image upside down and evaluate it. Where does your eye travel to? The subject, hopefully? And most of all, don’t fall in love with your work! In discussing the competition-print making process with Bob Coates (award-winning photographer and juror from Sedona, AZ), he said sometimes the best time to work on a competition image is 3-6 months after you’ve captured it. You seem to get a more objective view of what makes the image pop or how to adjust so that it does.

I know that telling this story now is a little like ‘closing the barn door after the horse has bolted,’ but I wanted to freeze in words what I observed and took away from Salon. I’ll re-run these concepts again prior to our next competition. However, think simple, analyze lots of winning prints and make the concepts you observe your own. And save your money and compete! I heard from one of the judges that if you don’t enter, you can’t win.

Again, congrats to our winners and our Guild!