Print Competition - or Print Education?

It's that time of year when photographers everywhere are preparing images for Print Competition. It's really a lot less about "competing" with others, however. It is a lot more about the inner challenges you make with yourself and the educational value it holds for you in your photographic career.

When I entered my first competition nearly 30 years ago, I picked my 4 best selling images from that year, made 4 16x20 prints and sent them off to PPA. I even included the extra fee so they would send me the critique; I wanted to hear how good I was.

When I received the case back from them some months later, I was shocked to learn that my highest scoring print was a 68. 68!?!? (Remember, you're shooting for 80 and above; anything below 70 gets put back in the case and doesn't even get displayed!)

I wasn't very happy. I popped the tape into the player to hear the critique and the judge's voice said something about "I'm not sure how much experience you have in this . . . while these are probably images the clients enjoyed, they're not at all what we are looking for in professional competition."

I was PISSED. "Screw them. The first ribbons I want are green ones with dead presidents on them. Who cares about print comp, anyway."

Fast forward to a year from then. A friend of mine drops by the studio because he had invited me to go along to the meeting of the local PPA Affilliate. "Oh, and it's print competition; bring some prints!" he says (as he's pulling prints out of frames on my wall.)

So . . . I go along to watch this. As I'm watching, one of the judges says to the others "If we're just handing out ribbons, we're doing ok, but if we're trying to help the makers prepare for PPA competition, we're not helping anyone by being lenient with our scoring."

Guess whose prints came up next? Yup - mine. 73, 71, 70. I listened to the comments, but knew I was done entering. Forever. This print comp thing sucked.

The next day I'm putting my prints back on the wall and the judges' remarks are still going through my head.

"The lighting is too flat and broad."
"Her hand looks like a claw."
"Cropping on this is too tight."

I had a session that afternoon, so I loaded a 220 roll instead of a 120. (For those of you who never shot film, that means I used a 2g card instead of a 1g. )

I used the first 10 frames to do the session the way I normally would have and the second 10 frames to do what the judges said (mostly just to prove those bastards wrong.) When the film came back from the lab later that week, I looked through the images and was stunned . . . the second set looked so remarkably different, I never even showed the client any of the first 10.

It completely changed how I handled every session. My old "style" was no longer . . . it just didn't have the same impact. Images I would have shown the client in the past were now ending up in the reject pile . . .their only purpose was to show me what I'd done wrong and how to correct it.

Take the time to look at the work of others who have been successful in print competition. The link below will take you to a few galleries of various makers' work that did well in competition.

http://mnppa2.com/main/members/galleries/

As Travis Gugelman says "If you want to be fat, eat what fat people eat. If you want to be successful, do what successful people do."

Good luck!

(BTW - I lied when I said I was done entering . . . I received my Master of Photography Degree in 1998.)

- David Grupa

Preparing Images for Competition? Get a Headstart at Mark and Krish Kiefer's Workshop!

It's that time of year when photographers everywhere are preparing files in the hopes of earning merits toward PPA's Master of Photography Degree, or perhaps just evaluating how their work stacks up against others in the industry. With image competition deadlines right around the corner, what would you give to be able to pick the brains of not one, but two PPA Masters who've experienced their fair share of success in this arena?

Here's your chance.

On Sunday, April 3rd, you can spend the day with Krish and Mark Kiefer to learn the secrets of success in print competition. Join this husband and wife team in their Waconia, MN studio as they guide you through the process of visualizing, selecting, enhancing and then finishing award-winning images from your raw file to the final presentation.They will decipher the twelve elements of a merit print. Areas of emphasis will include composition, storytelling, impact, creativity and presentation. You will learn how to properly work with your RAW file to get the most out of it, including proper sizing, color management, enhancing and final presentation/matting.

Both Krish and Mark have earned their Master of Photography and Photographic Craftsman Degrees from the Professional Photographers of America. Both are Certified Professional Photographers, experiencing success at all levels of competition. They have been awarded numerous Kodak Gallery Awards, Fuji Masterpiece Awards, judges' choice ribbons, as well as many PPA Loan Collection Prints. Their studio has been featured on the Photovision DVD series.

Since Krish and Mark are very close friends of mine, I could go on about their accolades but I think you get the idea. What I will say is this; these two are complete rockstars when it comes to the ins and outs of photographic competition. They're also good people who genuinely want to provide sound advice at a reasonable price. This is not one of those "thousand-dollar-days" that you won't be able to afford. (My understanding is that the price tag on this is actually under $200; how can you afford NOT to attend?)

Those attending are encouraged to bring images/files for critique and to work on. Bring your laptop to this full-day class so you can learn new techniques in Photoshop that will not only benefit you in competition, but bring up the overall quality of your everyday work.

Even though you may be asking yourself if you should wait until your images are better before start entering, the reality is the sooner you enter, the sooner you should start to see an improvement in your work. Do you really want to wait to improve your skills?

Entry deadline for the PPA International Competition 2011 is April 27th. Stop putting it off and make it happen now.

For information on this workshop (limited to 12 people to maximize the hands-on learning experience), call Krish or Mark at 952.442.5436.

Don't miss out on this awesome opportunity with two of the industry's best!

- David Grupa