One thing about awards parties: they’re great opportunities to put a face to a name, or to catch-up with industry folks who you’re normally in contact with through the less-personal email and phone. This is true of the photographers, clients, reps, consultants, and affable PDN staffers attending this year’s PDN Photo Annual awards and party.
Jacqueline Bovaird from Glasshouse Assignments, Anthony Georgis (our photographer from Portland), Manuela Oprea from Adweek, and me. All photos by Bill Cramer. Fujifilm gave out a bunch of Instax Mini 7’s, so everyone was photographing each other.
Bill Cramer (our CEO) and I attended last night’ gala, not least to celebrate our winning entry featuring Cade Martin’s memorable photo (p. 124 in the print edition). See our previous post detailing the nine Wonderful Machine photographers who won.
Before arriving at the event, we met up with our Los Angeles big rig truck photographer, Roger Snider. We dined at 508, which I’d definitely recommend for their atmosphere and ceviche.
You really need to meet Roger in person to appreciate his infectious zeal for the work that he’s doing. He’s very much found a niche with his truck work, as it combines his lifelong interests in photography and the big rigs. FYI: No Plastic Sleeves recently featured his unorthodox print portfolio.
After dinner, we headed to the awards. The first person I spotted was the iconic and clever blogger/photographer Andrew Hetherington, and we had a nice discussion on the merits of whether photographers were getting any work from appearing in photo annuals.
Another question: which ones are clients still using to find photographers? You should check out Andrew’s blog posts discussing these matters, as he is concerned that there are too many contests these days. No picture of Mr. Hetherington, but he’s pretty recognizable if you’ve seen his Facebook page icon or read his blog.
Cade Martin was on a shoot and unable to attend for his winning photo. However, we did have the great pleasure of hanging out with several other of our award-winning photographers, including DC photographer Susana Raab, New York’s Landon Nordeman, and Anthony Georgis, who came all the way from Portland.
Not to mention PDN‘s friendly crew, including Editor Holly Hughes, Executive Editor David Walker, Director of Photo Amber Terranova, Events and Awards man John Gimenez, and Photo Expo’s Jill Waterman.
It was also great to catch up with Manuela Oprea from Adweek, Daniella Jo Nilva-Cunningham from VH-1, the hard-working Jacqueline Bovaird, rep at Glasshouse Assignments, and our buddy from many events, consultant Louisa Curtis. We met more folks than I can name, which says how jam-packed the affair was with industry folk.
I’ve been to the last three awards, and they’ve always felt friendly and collegial. Thanks for another great evening, PDN!