Happy Mother’s Day everyone…and thank you to all of our members who are featured above!

Thank you so much to everyone who participated in our very first Best New Emerging Child Photographer Contest! After receiving a staggering 700 nominations, our judges narrowed down the talented field to 5 finalists. Last week, hundreds of you used our brand new Facebook voting app to vote on the top 5 and help us crown your favorite. Well the votes have been tallied and a winner has emerged. A big congratulations to the very deserving and very talented Anne Kerr of Anja Photography! Anne received the most votes, besting the other 4 finalists an earning the title of Best New Emerging Child Photographer of 2012. Read a little more about Anne below and be on the lookout for her upcoming feature in our May newsletter!

Anne Kerr (Anja Photography) – Anja Photography is a Natural light, on-location photography, specializing in baby, children, and family portraiture. Anne primarily works out of the Northwest suburbs and the Chicago North Shore. From her website: “It’s about the clock that stops only when a moment is captured. It’s about the flood tide of remembrance, revealed in shadows and light. Transcendence. It’s about your unrepeatable beauty. Your spirit. It’s about seeing what’s in your heart. It’s about time. This is why I love what I do.”

We would like to give a huge thanks to the judges for helping narrow down our Top 20…we know it was no easy task! Thank you again to Lena Hyde, Jane Johnson, Mariam Naficy,Rachel Devine, and Marsha Mifsud!

The winner of our 2012 contest will be handsomely rewarded with the following:

- 2 year membership into NAPCP

- $500 gift card to Adorama

- $150 gift credit to Design Aglow

- $200 gift credit to Jane Johnson Branding & Design

- $200 credit to use at Simply Color Lab

- Giclée Book from Album Crafters (valued at $300)

- $150 gift certificate to Artsy Couture

- $100 gift certificate to Nation’s Photo Lab

- Title of “NAPCP Best New Emerging Child Photographer 2012″, with exclusive official seal and bragging rights

We are also extremely honored to have had several amazing sponsors for our 2012 contest. Sponosrs include: Adorama, Simply Canvas, Jane Johnson Photography and Branding Design,Album Crafters, Design Aglow, Artsy Couture, and Nations Photo Lab! A big thanks to each and every one of you for your tremendous support.

Clockwise from top left: Quill & Fox, Happy Dabby Bits, Wit & Whistle, and Smock.

Clockwise from top left: Parenthetical Press, Ink and Iron, Rifle Paper Co, and K is For Calligraphy.

Clockwise from top left: Dutch Door, Wit & Whistle, Egg Press, and Hammerpress.

Happy Friday everyone!

Q:  Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
A: Still photographing children and families – hopefully my daughter will be holding my reflector by then!

Q:  What is your biggest source of inspiration?
A: Gorgeous light and raw emotion – together the two are so perfectly beautiful.

Q:  What photographer do you look up to?
A: There are so many that are fantastic, but I love film photographer Jonathan Canlas, he does amazing work.

Q:  What’s one thing about your business you wish you could change?
A: Honestly I love what I do, so maybe my 24 hours obsession with it!

Q:  What about your work or yourself sets you apart from everyone else
A: I’m just trying to be “me” and there is only one of “me” out there!

Thank you so much Emily! You can visit Emily’s site here, and head over to our Facebook page to vote for her here. Congratulations again, and good luck to all of our finalists!

The NAPCP Team

Q:  Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
A: Experiencing magnificent places with my family and hopefully I’ll have started and completed a personal project that I’ve been thinking about doing for the past few years.

Q:  What is your biggest source of inspiration?
A: Skylar and Ava – my two awesome children.

Q:  What photographer do you look up to?
A: Masters: Henri Cartier-Bresson, Sally Mann, Diane Arbus. Current: Dana Pugh, Deb Schwedhelm, Leah Zawadzki. All incredibly inspiring artists.

Q:  What’s one thing about your business you wish you could change?
A: The having to promote myself part of it all. I’m not so good at that!

Q:  What about your work or yourself sets you apart from everyone else?
A: My approach to photography is very relaxed and honest, I love photographing people as they truly are – popsicle stained mouths and all!

Thank you so much Melissa! You can visit Melissa’s site here, and head over to our Facebook page to vote for her here. Congratulations again, and good luck to all of our finalists!

The NAPCP Team

Q:  Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
A: I am fortunate in that I have a full time job that I love and a passion I am able to pursue on the weekends, so hopefully 5 years from now I will have found a better way to balance the two and both of my loves can co-exist harmoniously.

Q:  What is your biggest source of inspiration?
A: I would love to have an incredible story to tell about inspiration, but my inspiration exists in the form of two people, my dad (my best-friend) who is hands down the most supportive, remarkable man on the planet, and my other best-friend, Kelli – she pushes me all the time and I wouldn’t be here, a photographer, if it weren’t for her.

Q:  What photographer do you look up to?
A: Can’t narrow it down to just one, sorry  – Meg Bitton for her unapologetically beautiful view of the world, Keri Meyers for her technique and ability to teach, and Lisa Digeso (Milk & Honey Photography) for her simplistic approach to newborn photography.

Q:  What’s one thing about your business you wish you could change?
A: Holy mother of studio….I need a studio, if only to save my sanity and not have to pack my car from top to bottom only to unpack it hours later.

Q:  What about your work or yourself sets you apart from everyone else?
A: Every one of the finalists are great photographers, and I think we all have an interesting style or vision, but it’s as much about business as it is about being a unique artist – you need to be great at both.  I literally spend every available second I can learning the art and developing my style; between that and the business experience I have gained over the last 8 years at my (full-time) job and receiving my MBA (Hook EM!), I am able to run a successful photography business.

Thank you so much Jenni! You can visit Jenni’s site here, and head over to our Facebook page to vote for her here. Congratulations again, and good luck to all of our finalists!

The NAPCP Team

Q:  Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
A: In 5 years, I would love to have my own boutique-style photography studio and be pursuing my business full-time.

Q:  What is your biggest source of inspiration?
A: It began with my children, and has evolved into a pursuit of the art, the quest to create an encounter in the places of the heart that words can not reach.

Q:  What photographer do you look up to?
A: Meg Bitton, Pastel Photography, and Lisa Lucky are the artists I connected with in the beginning and continue to inspire me today.

Q:  What’s one thing about your business you wish you could change?
A: I am starting up this business while also currently managing life as a busy mom; but there is such a fire in my heart for this today that if I could change anything, it would be more hours in the day to devote to my business.

Q:  What about your work or yourself sets you apart from everyone else?
A: My work is simply my translation of the beauty and wonder I find in children; I seek to render my subjects in such a way that the experience of the image conveys that which is intimate, mysterious, and timeless about each child.

Thank you so much Anne! You can visit Anne’s site here, and head over to our Facebook page to vote for her here. Congratulations again, and good luck to all of our finalists!

The NAPCP Team

Q:  Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
A: On a beach taking pictures of children playing with babies elephants

Q:  What is your biggest source of inspiration?
A: Light, paintings, movies… life!

Q:  What photographer do you look up to?
A: Barb Uil of Jinkyart

Q:  What’s one thing about your business you wish you could change?
A: I dream of a natural light studio in an old house with a lot of windows and almost no walls!

Q:  What about your work or yourself sets you apart from everyone else?
A: I have always asked life for the best!

Thank you so much Anne! You can visit Anne’s site here, and head over to our Facebook page to vote for her here. Congratulations again, and good luck to all of our finalists!

The NAPCP Team

1 – Super chic new gold foil pocket notebooks from one of my favorites, Rifle Paper Co.

2 – Gorgeous cast metal jewelry tree from West Elm

3 – New designer iPhone cases from Nordstrom (Marc Jacobs pictured above)

4 – A curling iron that curls with no clips and doesn’t damage hair from Folica

5 – Trendy wrap watched in various styles and colors from Urban Outfitters

6 – Pretty floral shopping totes that are eco friendly from Red Envelope

7 – Customizable stationery and journals from Minted.com

Happy Friday everyone!

I know, from my own experience, that now that you have your marks and your comments, some of you probably have some questions. It is understandable so I am hoping to clarify a few things, as well as, point out some things that we noticed were happening repeatedly.

Let me start off by saying that the industry standard is a mark of 5-6. So, if you are looking at your grade as a percentage, that is a misrepresentation. You should be looking at in relation to the average. So, if you consistently scored below average, you may want to take a step back and evaluate where you could improve. To do this, you might start by having a portfolio review done by a photographer you admire and trust with the goal of learning the areas you truly have to improve technically and artistically. It is hard to judge from the results of an image competition where you entered two or three images exactly where you stand within the industry. Some mentoring from a more senior photographer could benefit you greatly.

For those of you who consistently scored within the industry standard, there are a number of things you can do to elevate your images. First, you want to become a ‘thinking’ photographer. And, by that I mean, you want to utilize all the tools in your kit to create images with greater impact. Starting with the basics like shutter speed, aperture, and the rules of composition. For example, the vast majority of the images were centred. Now, don’t’ get me wrong, there is always a time for centring, but the images that were cropped to the rule of thirds stood out after seeing hundreds of centred images. Many times you had found incredible locations that were under utilized. Look for things like leading lines, repetition, symmetry, framing when you are setting up an image. The better your understanding of these creative elements, the higher your score would have been.

Secondly, I think many of us underestimate the importance of connection. Often connection creates impact–so taking the time to truly connect with your clients and having them truly connect with each other creates an image that your audience will remember and think about.

Finally, I would like to say that anyone can take a perfectly fine image…but so what? So what if you can take a perfectly exposed, nicely posed image if it doesn’t leave an impression? In this market, and especially in competition, you need to do something to stand out. This is often referred to as ‘personal style’ and it requires some soul searching and a deeper understanding of what it is that you are actually trying to capture through your lens. What do you want your work to say? How is it a reflection of how you see the world? This is what truly creates impact and in a competition where impact is so important(and highly rated), you want to choose images that won’t get lost in the sea of entries. You need to create images that stand out. How you do that is the exciting part of photography. No one can tell you how to do that. That is entirely up to you.

I want to thank the NAPCP for everything over the past year. It was an honour to be their Photographer of the Year. When I entered the competition, I never would have imagined that would be the end result. Congratulations to all the winners and to everyone who entered. I know that putting yourself out there to be judged takes a large amount of courage and a desire to improve. That is something to be celebrated.