PPOC London Ontario

I've been away in Ontario for the first half of April visiting my brother and his 2 daughters in

North Bay for a few days (spent alot of time starting a cold). Took a quick break from the airport for lunch with my nieces aunt and her partner when I flew through Toronto.Thanks

Diane and Carrie.

It was spring in North Bay but the lake was

frozen solid and the streets had loads of sand on them.It is a very windy place as I found most

of Ontario to be.Pretty flat country. I so enjoyed getting to spend time with them in their

home and seeing their schools and meeting some of the people in their lives.I miss you all Chris,Ashten and Megan.

From there I flew down to London Ontario to attend the PPOC Professional Photographers of Canada Print Salon and Convention.Had a seat mate that invited me to come for dinner some time while in London.I did end up having dinner with Paul and his wife Nancy a few days later which was a welcome break from the convention centre.Great wine and homemade pizza & caesar salad! Thanks so much.Nancy is a member of the Purple Ladies and was heading out bowling with them.Now that I would of loved to watched!!! Thanks again for the warm invite.

I arrived early into London for the Convention by a day and was greeted at the airport by Nelson Simard and taken to his home in Woodstock, where he and Tanya Thompson (our PPOC Secretary) live in a beautiful home that Nelson has redone himself . Woodstock is a beautiful community that I would love to see in the summer as it was charming in the spring. Other people arrived throughout the day and at the end of the day 6 of us headed out for a great dinner at a Thai Restaurant in a small town between Woodstock and London.Fabulous food! The next day I wondered the streets of London,down Dundas and then the famous Richmond St full of shops to wonder in and out of .Tanya had told me about a little Middle Eastern restaurant that I did find for a lovely lunch and break from the walking.

I was one of the judges at the Nationals

for the Print Salon so after meeting other judges from across Canada in the evening it was up early each morning for the next 2 days for me to have breakfast and spend the days judging the portrait images that had been submitted.There were over 840 images submitted for the Print Salon either in print or digital format and albums as well.It was divided into 2 panels: Portrait and Commerical.I was on the first.That meant I could only enter images into the Commerical side NOT on the Portrait side as I was a judge on that panel. I entered 4 and had 3 accepted.

2 were actually "accepted" and one went "merit".Translated this means that a print can be judged and receive a Not accepted,accepted,merit or excellent status.I learned about my own prints 3 days later as I was very busy with what I was doing on the Panel.I was abit nervous to tell you the truth as it was my first time judging at Nationals (having done Provincials/other zones) and being on the same panel with Nelson Simard,Marc Bailey,Marlene Fast and Michael Ayers .Andrea Martin and I were the two newbies on the panel. Charles Vand Den Ouden was the Chair Person who kept us on track whether judging 16x20 prints or digitals entries on a Mac Moniter horizontal images first then the verticals.But honestly after 5 or 10 minutes I was having no problems doing what I came to do.I learned from my peers and appreciated their insights into controversial images but when I felt strongly about an image I did

try to help it by sharing my thoughts about it as well.It was exhausting but by the time we finished at 7:15 pm on the second day and choosing the winning images etc I felt that I had contributed to the panel and learned more about the talent that Canada has in her photographers.I was asked to judge the following day on the Accreditation Panel so that meant getting up early again which I love doing as I am a morning person. Nelson Simard was the Jury

Foreperson and on the panel were 4 of us: John Beesley,Chris Stambaugh (Our new PPOC President 2009) Mark Knight and myself. Accreditation is when people want to specialize in a particular category that they are able to do above average work in .They submitt 10 images digitally mostly but 8x10 prints had been entered in the past. Out of the 60 or so submissions we accepted 36.Seeing a body of work gave us a feeling of whether a photographer could do work under a variety of lighting situations or styles depending on the category.

After nearly 8 hours we finished and now the learning part began for us with the Great line up of speakers.And of course the Socializing aspect too with the parties that were organized for us.

More about that next time.