I'm not really into bragging so much but I do have to pass along this good piece of news. One of my images, "Sitting Pretty," was awarded the highest honor at the Professional Photographers of America's annual International Print Competition just last week.

Images are judged twice. If they merit the first time, they go into the General Collection and then are judged a second time. On the second round, judges decide whether they stay as is or move on to the highest level, the Loan Collection. My image of Luna, Chris Nguyen's gorgeous Border Collie/Aussie mix in a pose Chris taught her, went on to the Loan Collection.

And Chris, a dog trainer, did teach her this pose, so that part was easy, but getting her to the look at the camera while she was doing that was a bit tougher because she wanted to look at her dad, not me. Also, I have to say on this particular image, I was really happy with my lighting. She is lit from camera right and from the back camera left. I can't remember if I had another light for fill light or if I used a reflector... dear me, the mind slips. To complete the image, I used a texture for the backdrop, which was a roll of seamless blue paper that I thought looked really great with Luna.

Despite being a longtime PPA member, it was the first year I entered the competition and I learned a lot. In all honesty, I entered four images and only this one did anything. Everything else was a big zippity doo-dah. I opted to get critiques for all of my images and was sort of surprised what the judges said. Some I really understood, while one critique was largely about the border I created that the PPA wants, another one said something completely opposite about the border of the image that went loan. So confusing. I get some of the other critiques... one had to do with a pattern where a dog was sitting on, another had to do with the brightness of a rear foot.

But it's all good and I've already been thinking about next year's entries! Yes, I'm doing it again.