Bringing Home the Gold

I got yelled at by my wife for not tooting my own horn when I returned from the PhotoNorthEast conference in Woodcliff Lake, NJ this past weekend. The conference consists of professional photographers from New York and New Jersey who come together once a year for a four day conference featuring industry speakers from across the country, a big trade show and the annual print competition. I entered four prints in this year's competition which was held about a month ago, the first time it was not held at the conference itself. I knew that my prints did well in the competition score wise, but you don't know who is going to win awards until the conference. I was hoping to get a Court of Honor, which is a nice plaque given to a select group out of all the prints that received blue ribbons. I was fortunate enough to win one of this years Court of Honor awards in the Masters category. I was happy and would have been content to go home with that. The last award given out for the evening was the first ever Best of State award given to a photographer from New York State. I was absolutely blown away when they called my name, if not even a little embarrassed. Not only was I was one of the few people not wearing a tux, I didn't shave that morning either. Nevertheless, I proudly accepted the award for the image below which I created while shooting a wedding in Detroit last May. Click on the image to see a larger version.