Happy Holidays

Hard to think another year has passed by. I am sure this year with all my travels for PPANE it will fly by even faster! This is my holiday card for 2008. If you don't have your family photographed every year then you need to add this to your list of to do's this year. I can honestly say the mailing of this card has been very beneficial to my business for the last 16 years for a couple of reasons. First is the obvious, it keeps me in touch with my clients and is an added factor that makes us family. This small gesture has brought clients back to me year after year. No matter how many months go by and I run into a client, the first thing they say to me is how much they enjoyed my card and ask to never be removed from the list. If that wasn't reason enough to have these portraits done, the other reason is more important. It gives me the chance to walk in the shoes of my clients at least once a year. From choosing the photographer to create the image, to finding a time to pull 4 busy schedules together (the three of us and the photographer) to what we should wear. These are all the stresses that our clients go through. And that just gets you to the session. Then wanting it all to come out perfect, and the agonizing pain of picking our the final ones. Every step I take is the same my clients do. It really puts the process into prospective and helps me understand every day what my clients have gone through to walk through my door. If you think about it, we expect our clients to compensate us for the amount we do and yet many of us won't even have it done FREE. How can we truly value what we do if we don't even do it ourselves. I challenge all of you in 2009 to do a family portrait and display it proudly in your studios!

PS
The images above were taken by Jay Kennedy. I worked for Jay when I was in high school. To this day his imagery still amazes me. Yes we were in a field with cows, my cat Bella and dog, Lola. These images are ONE FRAME images. No head swapping, no photoshop tricks! They are as Jay captured them.

And the winner is...

CONGRATULATIONS TO JANET OSHA MILLER!
We’re ringing in the New Year and announcing the winner of the First Ever PPANE Calendar Competition. This project was one that for years I have been wanting to do and as president was able to make it happen. My call for images turned up a raft of gorgeous work from PPANE members. Our talented members were excited by the prospect of this showcase for their work and our beautiful region and each entrant could enter four images - one for each season.
The images were judged at the convention by our print jurors and 16 winners
were selected. Yes, this is a 16 month calendar I will have copies for sale at the upcoming state conventions.

After the convention, images were posted on LustreColor’s
web site and all were invited to vote for a cover image. The competition was fierce with this image by Janet Miller of Vermont winning to be featured on the cover of this years calendar.
The image makers whose work will be featured inside are Janet Miller (4 images!), Barry Hayes (2), Pipere Sailer (2), Jack Holowitz (2), Ed Pedi, Andie Goodman,
Andrea Carbonneau, Mark Haskell, Marilyn Dillon and Candace Pratt Stiteler.

The calendar project is funded entirely by sponsorship from The Vermont Professional Photographers Association
and LustreColor and proceeds from calendar sales.
Congratulations to all who entered. Let’s have even more great entries next year!

Did you VOTE???

Many years ago I came up with the concept of doing a PPANE calendar, but not having enough support the idea was passed over. Now with the price of press printing more affordable, the help from our sponsors and a board willing to try NEW things, in 2009 PPANE will unveil our first PPANE calendar.

In honor of my presidency, my home state of Vermont is one of the sponsors of the calendar. The VPP board thought it would be a great way to remember Joel Towart, whom we were benefactors of his tremendous generosity. Joel was a big fan of PPANE and never missed a chance to spend time with his PPANE friends. I can not thank Vermont Professional Photographers enough for supporting me and PPANE in this project!

Our other sponsor is LustreColor. 3 years ago I approached Ken Wilson asking for help with this project. He has done all he can to help make it happen and I am thrilled to have them as a supporter and LustreColor host the voting.

Speaking of voting. Did you vote for the cover of the calendar?? The inside images were selected by out of region PPA Affiliated Judges, but the cover choice is up to the members. Please take the time to vote for your favorite image!!

www.lustrecolor.com/PPANEContest

The calendar will run from September 2009 to December 2010. I will have them as I visit each state convention to sell. Can't wait to see what is going to be on the cover! Voting is opening till Friday, Dec 12th at NOON.

We are off and running!!

So here I am 19 days into being the PPANE Prez and doing my first blog entry. I remember telling Bernie last year how he should do this and how much fun it would be to keep the members informed of the presidents travels. There is so much that happens from one convention year to the next, and I feel for the most part the members don't get to hear about much of it. I hope this blog will solve this. I hope you will enjoying learning about my travels and the hard work of the board!!

Many of you might have caught above where I said 19 days, you may remember Bernie getting his President plaque and me being installed as president. You weren't dreaming that all did happen in September. You see we actually don't transfer power until our board meeting the first Monday in November, which is when our fiscal year starts. This is when we pass the gavel. My dear friend Bob Lizzari made me an extra large gavel, as you can see compared to Bernie's, the outgoing president. I think it was his hint for me to "speak softly and carry a big stick and you will go far" which is from our 26th president, Theodore Roosevelt. The humor was needed after a long 2 day meeting.

My heart was very sad over the fact that our budget and finance committee had to except the resignation of our Executive Director, Roland Laramie. The thought of being the first president in over 25 years to do this job without him made tears run down my face for 3 days. I finally turned it around telling myself that I would be the 1st president to have a whole year to honor him and dedicate this year's convention to him.

Oh the FUN we had!!

If you enjoy all the awesome images on the blog from the convention, you should thank this man Wayne Tarr. Wayne and his team of photographers covered the convention like I have never seen it done before!! GREAT job Wayne!!!

Top notch Education

Of course, one of the most, if not the most, important reason to come to the convention is to be educated and inspired by some of the best talent in our industry. We couldn’t bring them without help from our sponsors, and are grateful for their support. Please take notice and give them special consideration when deciding who to turn to for your business’ needs. I would like to thank the following sponsors and speakers for our excellent
programs: Burrell Lab sponsored Glen Gray who’s classes gave an opportunity to get a leg up on digital cameras, workflow and business management. Kingdom Color helped out with Don Whipple and Bob Jenk’s early bird program on lighting and posing. Virtual Backgrounds and Marathon Press brought us Greg Stangl and his program, “The Power of Persuasion”. American Color Imaging sponsored Thom Rouse and his artistic program on “Visual Literacy”. Kodak, Whitehouse Custom Color and Larson Enterprises co-sponsored Carl Caylor’s informative program, “TheArtistic Elements of Portraiture”. Fujifilm helped bring us a seniors program by Ellie Vayo (who will be teaching at NEIPP). Tina and Michael Timmons’ program, “How to Make More Money” utilizing artistic techniques to set one’s work apart from the rest, was sponsored by Miller’s Professional Imaging. I am also grateful for sponsorship and help from others who helped make our convention the best it could be. Canon helped out with their equipment and technicians at the Photographers Shootout/”The One”. Natural Color helped sponsor the PPANE party, and Brides.com gave out free drink tickets . Lenzart made the terrific signage for the convention.

Sold out Trade Show!!!

Trade Show Vendors 2008!

Without the support of the vendors at our trade show there is no way PPANE could provide the education and support to the New England Professional Photographers. This year in our new location we were able to sell out the space and even had a few more vendors then last year. We are looking forward to being able to add 15 more spaces next year to the show with a new floor plan.

Please support the vendors below, click on a link and visit their sites!

Albums Inc.

Art Leather

B&H

B&S Frames

Burrell Colour Imaging

Calumet

Canon

Capri Album

Century Color

David Katz

Digital Silver Imaging

EP Levine

Excel Frames

Flash Palette web design

GW Molding

H&H Color Lab

Hallmark Imaging

The Image Place

Leather Craftsman

Lenzart

Levin Frames

Lustre Color

Mac Group

Madcamp Backgrounds

Marathon Press

Midwest Photo

Millers

Natural Color Imaging

Printmakers

Pro Photo Gear

RPG Keys

Senior Pictures.com

Ultra Color

Virtual Backgrounds

WHCC

Wicker by Design

Let's Party!!

If you missed the PPANE party this year, you certainly missed one of the most unique parties we have ever had. Tom really out did himself on this one!! We were certainly entertained with the Joan Rivers impersonator. She or is it HE greeted everyone at the door.

















I am still not sure if Sal knows if Joan was male or female!!!











Ann and Jeff were celebrating their anniversary. Joan had some words of advice for them too!!






















I think Joan was trying to take Alan home with her!!















Keith and Jen are surprised by their
welcome as they walk into the room!














Here Joan and Rene get a little marrital advice
from Joan and all her experience!



















I just think maybe Nancy stole the show from Joan for just a minute!!









Here Mark poses with Joan!!





















Don't think you were going to be safe in the
corner, no one was safe from Joan's humor!














Here are our hosts Rick and Tom, I think they were the only ones that knew what we were in for!!!















Even I wasn't safe from her!! She insisted I looked like Rosie O'Donnell and of course I was a lesbian!! Well then EVERYONE was either gay or a lesbian according to her.













Joan did a great job working the room and turning over every rock to find someone hiding from her!
























After all the hard work of the print committee, it was time to have a drink and a few laughs!!













You can see the laughs didn't stop all night!!

Affiliate Judging

One of the member benefits of PPANE is that we host an affiliate judging. If you have ever served on a state print committee, multiply that 3 times and that is what you have at PPANE. A lot of the stress is keeping everything in accordance with PPA standards and rules.

This committee is the first to arrive and the last to leave. For as much hard work it is, the fun and team camaraderie is worth every minute.
The committee arrives and the work begins. Here you can see we use two computers to do the data entry. This information is VERY important to be able to print out all the reports that PPA requires from us.

Each print has to be checked in and the backs highlighted to identify what awards it will be eligible for.

Don't let Nancy fool you, she is a pro when it comes to print competition. Many many years she has lead the troops in Massachusetts.



WOW Look at the print cases!!!





One of the many benefits of print committee is that you get to see ALL the images and the makers case all at once. Here Jennifer and Bob are loving one of the images they opened up!!

The prints start adding up, Peggy making sure they stay in the right order.





After a complete day of prep work. We are ready to go. Let the competition begin!! This year we had almost 100 print cases and about 400 entries including albums and folio's.

The good news is our numbers were up from last year.









This is the jury chairman, J. Michael McBride making sure that the print is clean for the judges to view.




As you can see all of this can be exhausting. This being Rick's first year on the committee, I think it caught up with him!!





We can not thank these judges enough for the hard work and dedication to our profession and to print competition. They travel half way across the country to be with us and work long hours in a short amount of time to complete the task.


I wish I had a few images to show you the print display room being set up. Kristine and Ed are the power houses back there. The whole time print cases are being opened, logged in and being judged, these two are in the back room getting the print room ready to display all the amazing images. We all had the challenge of a new location this year but I think the one that had the MOST challenge was Kristine and making sure the space would work and flow well.

As you can see and if you were there, it was the BEST display we have EVER had. The room was bigger and had a much better flow!!