Late October Status Update
I just wanted to give a quick update because this weekend is going to be quite busy for me and I don’t know how much time I’ll have keep things up to date. Tonight is the Photowalk that I’m hosting at the Coastal Carolina Fair, Friday night I’m going to go see Rocky Horror at the Charleston Ballet, and on Saturday my wife and I are hosting our 3rd annual Halloween party for our kids.
As of this writing, the photowalk is still on. The weather report is abysmal for today, but right at sunset the storm should move out of here. If the weather forecast is correct, then there is a chance that we will have some spectacular cloud formations right at sunset! *UPDATE* Well, as usual, the forecast when I wrote this post at midnight last night was wrong. As of 9:00AM this morning it has the storm hitting right at the time of the scheduled walk. I will keep you updated – make sure to follow me on twitter for the latest updates. **UPDATE** I’m heading over to the fair now – the walk is on!
I also wanted to briefly mention that I will be attending BarCamp Charleston on November 13th at the College of Charleston. I have a proposed photography session, so if you are planning to go then please vote it up and make it happen! I will talk more about the “unconference” in the coming weeks.
Finally, photographer/blogger Kent Weakly has a photo contest going on right now and I’ve submitted one of my recent photos. It would be real nice if you visited his website and voted for my photo (#37) on October 30th-November 1st, or even just voted for anyone at all so that he’ll keep doing these! While you’re there check out the rest of his site and blog – he’s got a ton of helpful videos.
That’s all for now – I hope you all can brave the weather tonight and join me for some fried Oreos!
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I can not believe you entered the AMATEUR DIVISION at the fair! How dare you! As a photographer who actually SALES his work you KNOW you should have entered Division 1 professional, but no! Instead you robbed a true amateur of what they deserved! I will by contacting the judges, you are a disgrace to photographers.
In fact, how pathetic of you are you THAT desperate?… even I entered division 1 and I haven’t received payment for anything. Did you not read the rules?
“This division is open to professional photographers (those who work full or part time in photography) AND accomplished amateur entrants who are CAPABLE of competing at the Division 1 level.”
If you had ANY integrity at all you would contact them yourself.
@Anon – it’s OK if you use your own name, I’m not gonna bite you. Please take a minute and read this post about the very subject: http://jwnphoto.com/?p=1630
I didn’t make that decision lightly, and I don’t expect you to know my whole history, but I only started selling prints on this site a couple of weeks ago (and this site is only about 6 weeks old)! I run another business as my career, and use photography as a creative outlet, not a profession. Take a trip to the fair and you will see that there is no difference this year between the work of the top rated photos between the amateurs and professionals, and in fact, the best in show this year went to an amateur. I don’t feel I’ve taken anything away from anybody – just one year ago I entered this same contest as an amateur and didn’t even score an honorable mention (I reference last year’s contest here: http://jwnphoto.com/?p=1389).
Is it pathetic? I guess that’s your opinion, but I don’t think of myself as a professional photographer – I take it as a compliment that you think I am, so thank you.
I’ve seen your work before the contest, I think it’s great. I’m not going to lie, lol. That being said, I know you know that as well.
It doesn’t matter if you have just got this site or not. Heck, you’re offering to teach a session for BarCamp… Come on! You know if you’re an Amateur that you would not be offering to teach anyone.
When I call myself a professional it was not to say I do anything professionally… I don’t even have a website and I give people excuses as to why I don’t think I’m good enough to sale my work… HOWEVER, I have seen enough amateur and professional work to know it would be unfair to enter the amateur division. You’re right in your when you say that you could hardly see the difference between division 1 & 2 because people were entering the wrong divisions. I’m coming in less experienced than you… this was my first contest, and more than likely if you had gone into division 1 I wouldn’t have got anything.
I’m not mad that you are good, lol, seriously I like your work. I would’ve preferred to see you place or make honorable mention in the correct division though even if it meant me missing out so a true amateur could’ve won division 2. If you think your work is good enough to sell (which it is) then you know you’re good enough to enter as division one. Just something to think about.
@Anon – Thanks a lot for the compliments! I can assure you that my ultimate decision to enter this year’s contest as an amateur was based mostly on my performance from last year’s contest coupled with my personal definition of a professional – I saw how good the amateurs were last year, and even though I’ve grown since then (mostly due to a 365 project that forced me to work at it daily) I do feel that I’m still on the amateur side of the fence. Since I’ve established this website last month, I’ve definitely moved closer to the professional side. I would say at this time in my life I’m nearing a crossroads, and your concerns definitely affect me and have made me revisit this.
I’m lucky in the sense that my other career gives me the knowledge of how to build and market a website, as well as be a bit more computer savvy than a lot of other photographers. That is why the session I’ve proposed is about the digital darkroom – I have tons of experience in teaching about software because I’m a technology consultant by profession! The BarCampCHS people contacted me directly and asked me to do something, so I picked something I knew I could offer the most insight on.
I promise you that next year I will be entering as a Division I photog, as I stated in my blog post about my decision. I hope you can understand the logic I used in my decision this year – it was not an easy one as a lot of things have been happening for me because I’ve put myself out there a lot in the last month-and-a-half. I didn’t enter this contest as an amateur to win, I entered in this division to improve over last year. Even if I only just received higher scores than last year, I would have been happy!