Summerfest Fun

Recently I attended the Texas Professional Photography Association’s Summerfest in Conroe.  It is an annual conference for professional photographers in Texas.  At the Summerfest you can attend lectures and workshop classes, but it’s the Print Competition that I go for.  Plus, it is a great place to network with other professional photographers from across the state.  This was my second year attending, but last year (and all previous years) the Summer conference was held in Kerville, TX.  Kerville was fun, too, but the new site at La Torreta in Conroe is so much nicer.

Print Competition

TPPA’s Summer Print Competition follows the same guidelines that are used for the PPA’s print judging and Scoring.  The judges score a print on the 12 Elements of a Merit Image.   Images of 80 and higher receive a Merit and are eligible for category awards, too.  Last year I merited on one image out of my four with a digital painting of Baby Avery.  It also won a ribbon for Best Portrait of a Child.

Avery’s Debut

This year my print case merited two of four.  Both were digital paintings.  I spent a lot of time this past year playing with my digital painting and learning the software better.  I entered three digital paintings and a landscape.  The landscape had won a Judges Choice Award earlier in the year at another exhibition.

Autumn Angler

However, it only scored in the “Above Average for a Professional Photographer” category and not at 80 or above for a Merit.   My Merit images were a portrait of my beautiful daughter and my handsome kitty, Fabio.   Fabio’s portrait scored an 83.

The Most Interesting Cat in the World

And finally, Kayleigh’s angelic portrait scored 82 during judging and won a trophy at the awards ceremony for the Master Artist category.

My Sweet Angel

I’m looking forward to the next Print Competition.  This year I’m going to enter the PPA competitions at the District level.  I’m already planning the images for those prints.