Monday morning, I woke up got an email saying “Your WPPI First Half Competition Result.” It reads as follows:
“With 3200 image entries, the competition for imaging excellence was fierce in this round of the Members Only First Half competition. If your images did not score well, consider some of the basic tenets of good image-making: proper exposure, lighting excellence, good posing and expression, adequate retouching and excellent postproduction techniques. “
As I glanced thru how my pictures would score, most of them are in 70s. While I’m reading between the lines of the email, then I see………. “Engagement First Place!” I screamed to the top of my lugs, “JEREEEEMMMYYYY CHAAAANNNNN”!!!!! While waking up Jeremy from his deep coma, he too could not believe what he see from my email either, NO WAY, what!?!?!! Engagement First Place!!! I had to ask Jeremy to pinch me hard & take a deep breath to realize this is not a dream. OK, we are VERY excited, humble and thrilled of receiving a First place in Engagement from a photograph we took back in March in Paris, and a total of five accolades in excellence from this international photography competition. Not sure what to say but we would like to take the rest of the post to show our gratitude toward these people:
All might Lord Jesus, all glory to Him!! We love because Jesus loves us first. He placed certain people, certain tools, certain events happened in our lives to make things happen. In events such as letting go of our stability, a house, two new cars & two 9-5 office jobs to achieve a higher meaning of this new career – to produce excellence in photography. Read the story of our journey.
The most important person in my life – Jeremy Chan!! It wouldn’t be “JeZa” without him.
Our photography papa and mentor Scott Robert Lim who taught us everything we know about portraiture, posing & lighting, more importantly, going after our dreams with hard works. To the entire Scott Robert family, thank you for being the brothers & sisters in this big photography family. We know our journey and yours too is not lonely one. Thank you for being part of making who we are.
We are very grateful being part of the WPPI community, WPPI helps us to grow our craft thru participating in competition, learn new skills from attending their classes in Vegas. Not only that, we get to hang out with top photographers across the globe!! I can’t wait til see a lot of you in WPPI Vegas in 2012!! The next round international photography competition will be open on October 3rd and end on November 11th. I look forward to compete alongside with all of you.
Update on Feb 2012: Two of our images made it to the Las Vegas WPPI 2012 award Ceremony winning Image of the Year! Yay!! Watch the video below winning along with amazing photographers like Paul Ernest, Cheryl Walsh!
WPPI 2012 – Members only International Photos of the Year from JeZa Photo on Vimeo.
Congrats!! That is so exciting!