How my lifelong hobby turned into a niche for my photography business.               By: John Tulipano

Most of you know I have had a huge interest in the fire service since I was a young child. That interest has lead me to find paid photography jobs in this area.

Image from color negative taken in 1984

  When I was about 10 years old there was a significant fire near my childhood home and all the older kids in my neighborhood walked to see the fire but wouldn't take me. Ever since then I have always wanted to know where the fire trucks were going. As I grew older I learned that my grandfather was a Chicago fireman. In high school I was introduced to a friend who was photographing fire trucks. We spent every Saturday taking static (posed) photos of fire trucks using my Kodak Instamatic camera. When I became a senior in high school I upgraded to the Pentax K1000. I joined the year book staff as a photographer and shot many assignments at school. We bulk loaded our own file, processed it after shooting and created contact sheets for the editors to choose the images they wanted for the page spreads. Then went back to the dark room to print the images for the spreads.

I attended Triton college after high school following the associate degree in photography and taking some fire science classes as electives. I upgraded to the Canon F1 and a Sunpak 611 flash for shooting nighttime fires. The associate’s degree program was disbanded at the college and I never completed my degree.

I continued fire scene and fire apparatus photography over many years. It slowed down as adult life started, children arrived and my corporate job took me away from the camera.

Fast-forward to 2014 I was taking pictures at a fire with my Canon 20d, the shutter was not firing properly. It was time for an upgrade and a friend suggested a full frame sensor camera and to shoot in RAW format. I had no idea what he was talking about. I had recently lost my job with AT&T and was looking for a new career and wanting to be my own boss. After purchasing a Canon 6d I was hired by a friend to take photos of large cranes working at construction sites and was paid well for the work. This would be the start of my professional career.

I began attending fires again, several firefighters asked about seeing my photos. So I would email the fire chiefs a handful of images after attending fires. I was asked to be the official photographer for the fire departments in my area and was given credentials and unfettered access at fire scenes. I could go anywhere I wanted on the fireground and with my years of experience attending fires I know where to go and still be safe.

I attended a lighting workshop hosted by Michael Barton, who suggested joining PPA and PPANI to meet other local photographers. I joined both in 2016. After learning some lighting techniques I approached one of fire chiefs about portraits, they hired me to do portraits of firefighters in their dress uniforms and I provided them with 5x7 prints. I have been hired by 25 fire departments doing anything from simple 5x7 prints to large 60x40 wall collages or a combination of both my average price is about $3200 per department.

Many of the fire scene images that I've taken over the years are now becoming decorative wall pieces at my local fire stations anywhere from 8x12 mounted prints to 16x24 metals. Fire departments are hiring me for events such as retirements and promotions.

Two months ago I was contacted by a fire truck dealership who saw a large metal print on the wall at a fire department station he was selling a new fire truck to. We worked out a contract and I am providing them delivery photos of apparatus sold in the Chicago area. I created a 16x24 metal print that he presents as a gift to the department who purchases the new fire truck. That gave me the idea to reach out to several more fire truck dealers and suggest the same thing. We are in talks right now for providing something very similar.

I would have never dreamed that a hobby I still enjoy today could be 60% of the revenue of my business. What's your hobby or interest outside of photography, how can your photography business help promote your hobby or enhance it for others?

The following is presented to attempt to clarify the competition rules.

To begin, the next section is the category descriptions for District Awards by PPA

_____________________________________________

Portrait 

Images can portray a subject or subjects from all walks of life and should reflect the personality of the subject(s).

• Children - This sub-category must contain a child or children from birth to age 16.
• High School Senior - This sub-category portrays a male or female age 16 to 18.
• Animal - This sub-category captures an animal(s) portrait using structured lighting in a studio or outdoor environment, where the owner or photographer control the animal.
• General Portrait - This sub-category includes families, groups, couples, and adults (18 and older), relationships, models, and fashion portraits, in addition to tastefully artistic figure studies.

Illustrative

Capturing the beauty of nature, wildlife, industry, and architectural areas are considered illustrative.

• Landscape/Nature - This sub-category shares joy and adventures while expressing a sense of place. Wild animals in an uncontrolled lighting environment, zoo animals,  flowers, seascapes, cityscapes, urban landscapes, and sunsets with or without people can be placed here.
• Illustrative/Commercial - This sub-category is used when images are created for a commercial client to advertise a product and promote a brand or company. This can be an interior or exterior of a structure or within an industrial environment. Illustrative can also be conceptual images that tell a story.
• PO Album: consists of portrait and story-telling albums.

Creative Open

This category consists of images that have additional photographic elements not created by the maker. All the other PO rules still apply with the exception that an entrant may choose to use photographic elements in the image not created by the maker. These photographic elements must be shown in a guide image. The purpose of this category is to allow makers to enter everyday images that may contain digital backgrounds or other photographic elements not created by the entrant. All necessary releases are required. The jurors will evaluate the entire image, but the photographic elements that were created by the maker must still be merit worthy as well as the overall image.

Wedding

Images created at or in connection with a wedding.

• WEDDING OPEN: Images can portray a subject or subjects from all aspects of a wedding including traditional portraits, candids or detail work.

• SINGLE MAKER WEDDING ALBUM: Multiple images combined into a digital album collection exclusively showcasing a specific wedding.
• MULTI‐MAKER WEDDING ALBUM: Images in the album must be the work of the two entrants, with a minimum of 20 images per entrant.  Each entrant must individually enter the competition and pay appropriate entry fees. Multi‐maker Wedding albums will be judged as one entry.

Artist

A conceptual image altered or manipulated from its original condition. Creations can be a subtle application using post-processing techniques, or a dramatic combination of details to suggest a larger story. The artist is responsible for the idea behind the image and the work done to create the finished art piece.

• Artist Open
• Restoration

PPANI awards Best of Categories for the following:

Best Album (only in February)

Best Artist                              Best Portrait

Best Illustrative                     Best Commercial

Best Wedding                       Best Creative Open

Best Black & White (Monochrome) chosen from all of the other categories.The B&W checkbox must be checked on the entry form.

Best of Show chosen from all the Best of Categories.

PPANI is changing to judging all categories separately instead of mixing them all together in an attempt to avoid possible confusion during judging.

The Creative Open category was just added for us and needs some clarification.

We have discussed for years how much of an image must be photographed or otherwise made by the maker. Small elements can be used for any of the categories as long as the majority of the image is photographed and designed by the maker. This includes purchased backgrounds and props as long as they are Not Photographic.

If the background is a photograph or a muslin or canvas made from a photograph, and looks real it can only be used in the Creative Open category and must be shown as a ”thumbnail” or “guide” image on the side of the main image in the final presentation. Things like “clipart” are allowed in all categories as long as they are minor elements in the makers design. These do not need to be thumbnails in the Creative Open images. Recently we had a Harley Davidson emblem shown as guide image. This was not necessary because it was not photographic. The following image will illustrate the Creative Open requirements.

The entire background of this image is very realistic because it is from a photograph (NOT taken by the maker) which is properly shown as a thumbnail on the right.This image has only one, but if there were more they would be lined up above the one shown.

The judges now can evaluate what work the maker did to accomplish this result.

The following is an example which has a photographic background which was photographed and then manipulated by the maker. This should be entered in Photographic Open in the Portrait or maybe Illustrative categories. Creative Open is not appropriate for this. It doesn’t eed any thumbnail accompaniment. The same hold for the “Tempest in a Teacup” where all elements were photographed by the maker.

        

           The Artist Category is much different in that the final image is only part of what’s important. The maker must demonstrate all the elements that went into the creation. The thumbnails will include all elements (photographic or not) so the judges can mentally follow the creative process. The two images following demonstrate this.

I hope this helps to clarify competition images.

Bruce Van Pelt

Feb 12, 2020      All Day Print Competition Results

By: Bruce Van Pelt - Print Chair

      We had 185 entries from 28 makers. The breakdown is as follows:

79 Portraits

            46 Illustrative

            18 Wedding

            9 Commercial

            18 Creative Open

            12 Artist

            3 Albums

            23 B&W from the above categories.

The judges discussed many of the images as Challenges. This is where we learn the most from the judges’ opinions.

We had 105 that scored 80 or above (President’s Award) 105/185 or 58%.

We had 28 that scored 85 – 89, and 5 scored 90 - 95.

I want to thank my great print crew: John Tulipano, Alejandro Mimo, Megan Drane, Carry White and Brandi Orlando.

Thanks to the judges. They were Robert Hawkins (Jury Chair, Iowa), Chris Richman (NC), Gina Gardner (NV), Wayne Torr (VT), and Adam Carrol (MI).

Awards

Best Black & White

“Hand Drawn” by Peggy Sue Seehafer

Best Artist

“Beautiful Patriotic Symbol” by Peggy Sue Seehafer

Runner’s Up

“Leading Lines” by Scott Detweiler

“I Bodypainted An Octopus Doll” by Scott Detweiler

Best Portrait

“Rocker Chic” by Michael Novo

Runner’s Up

“Uncaged” by Megan Drane

“Temptress” by Scott Detweiler

“Emerald” by Laura Dajoraite

Best Illustrative

“Industrial Attitude” by Scott Detweiler

Runner’s Up

“What a Strange Bird” by Maria Heineman

“Elusive Muse” by Jim Pierce

Best Wedding

“Together at Last” by Carol DeAnda

Runner’s Up

“I'm Luuuvin' In the Rain” by Michael Novo

“Christina” by Carol DeAnda

“Taxi Men” by Michael Novo

Best Commercial

“Moonlight Harvest” by Kathryn Northcott

Runner’s Up

“Antique Elegance” by Kathryn Northcott

 “Back in the Good Old Days” by Kathryn Northcott

Best Creative Open

“Downtown Geisha” by Michael Novo

Runner’s Up

“Moonrise” by Jerry Alt

 “Dark Fairy” by Beth Genengels

Best of Show

“Industrial Attitude” by Scott Detweiler

Entering image competition can seem a little bit daunting. I have been coming to PPANI meetings for about 6 years. At first very sporadically, I had little ones at home and if there wasn’t a speaker I thought I would want to see I didn’t work really hard to find a sitter. So of course I missed a couple of print competitions, because I didn’t see the value of watching other people’s work get evaluated. But about 3 years ago I finally hit a place in my life, and in my business where there was enough room for personal and professional growth. After attending my first print competition, I was fascinated, what made an image merit worthy, why did some images score so much better than others. Now I aim to get to every meeting, and I enter print competition, even when I’m not sure if an image is going to merit or not.

Why? One of the reasons is growth. The more images I enter, the more I learn about what makes a technically superior image. The other reason is proof to myself and others that I am producing professional level work. In today’s day and age when cell phone’s are taking pretty good images, we as professionals have to be able to dial it up a notch. More than that, we need to give our clients a compelling reason to use us instead of just their trusty, on them all the time, phone. To that end, one of the reasons I enter print competition is to complete my Northern Degree.

At the beginning of every meeting, the volunteer checking you in usually asks if you have a merit degree book from Northern. I collected about three of these before I took the time to start tracking my degree points. I finally realized that the best way to earn points was by entering print competition. You can enter up to 8 images in our PPANI Print competition. The print entry is free as long as you are a member and paid your fee to attend the meeting. So that is 8 points you can earn just by entering your images. It could take you all year to earn that many points just attending meetings.

( Information about entering can be found here: https://ppani.wildapricot.org/resources/Documents/2018%20PPANI%20Competition%20Rules%20New.pdf )

I entered my first PPANI print competition in February of 2018. I entered 7 images and received upper 70 scores on all but one. I had to leave early and was listening to the game day app in my car when my final image came up. I don’t remember what my initial score was, but the image was challenged and brought up to an 85. I had a merit image. I was so excited, it gave me a renewed spirit for learning how to create images that not only were loved and appreciated by my clients, but that are also technically and creatively created. My images are pretty hit or miss when it comes to print competition, but I am learning from each and every one. The judges are usually willing to discuss your image after the competition and can tell you the images strengths and

weaknesses. It’s not always an easy thing to hear, but I have found they are always kind about doing it. We are all still learning. Just some of us (finger directly pointed at me) have more left to learn than others.

As for my PPANI merit image, I finally pulled together 3 images that merited at PPANI and decided to enter Districts and then PPA’s International Print Competition. I may only have one image that merited at IPC, but it’s my first one that merited at PPANI and it’s more than I had before putting my work out there. And quite frankly, it makes me smile.

Thank you to our Print Chair, Bruce Van Pelt for his report, and congratulations to all who entered!

PPANI

October 9, 2019      Digital Image Competition

       We had 60 entries from 11 makers. The breakdown is as follows:

52 Portraits

1 Illustrative

4 Wedding

0 Commercial

3 Artist

0 Albums

12 B&W from the above categories.

The judges discussed many of the images as Challenges. This is where we learn the most from the judges’ opinions.

We had 19 that scored 80 or above (President’s Award) 19/60 or 32%. 

We had 8 that scored 85 – 89, and 0 scored 90 or above.

I want to thank my great print crew: Alejandro Mimo, Beth Genengels, Julie Monacella and Megan Drane. 

Thanks to the judges. They were Thom Rouse, Michael Barton and Bert Behnke.

Sincerely,

Bruce Van Pelt, Chairman

Awards

Best Black & White

“First Time in Chicago” by Heather Wilson

Runner’s Up

“Misty” by Jerry Alt

“Dew Covered Landscape” by Jerry Alt

“Knee High by the Fourth of July” by Heather Wilson

Best Artist

“Red, White & Blue” by Peggy Sue Seehafer

Best Portrait

 “Regal” by Laura Dajoraite

Runner’s Up

“Flowergirl” by Megan Drane

 “Fawna, the Woodland Spirit” by Megan Drane

“Stroll in the Fog” by Tom Brandt

“Draped in Loneliness” by Julie Monacella

“Knee High by Fourth of July” by Heather Wilson

“Misty” by Jerry Alt

Best of Show

“Regal” by Laura Dajoraite

BVP 10/9/2019

PPANI

May 8, 2019      Digital Image Competition

       We had 74 entries from 13 makers. The breakdown is as follows:

34 Portraits

16 Illustrative

13 Wedding

0 Commercial

11 Artist

0 Albums

8 B&W from the above categories.

The judges discussed many of the images as Challenges. This is where we learn the most from the judges’ opinions.

We had 36 that scored 80 or above (President’s Award) 36/74 or 49%. 

We had 7 that scored 85 – 89, and 1 scored 95.

I want to thank my great print crew: John Tulipano, Alejandro Mimo, Beth Genengels, Julie Monacella and Bill Gommel. 

Thanks to the judges. They were Thom Rouse, Peter Yu and our speaker Megan DiPiero.

Sincerely,

Bruce Van Pelt, Chairman

Awards

Best Black & White

“Broken Doll” by Michael Novo

Runner’s Up

“Piano en Pointe” by Jerry Alt

“What's Left to the Imagination” by Jerry Alt

Best Artist

“Into the Dark” by Megan Drane

Runner’s Up

  “Who's Peeking?” by Peggy Sue Seehafer

“Dust Buster” by Rosemary Cooper

“Son of Africa” by Megan Drane

Best Portrait

“Muted” by Megan Drane

Runner’s Up

“Raven Heart” by Megan Drane

“Matryoshka Russian Doll” by Michael Novo

Best Illustrative

“Peregrine's Fade to Extinction” by Peggy Sue Seehafer

Runner’s Up

“Great Horned Owl” by Peggy Sue Seehafer

“Tropical Lily” by Peggy Sue Seehafer

Best Wedding

“Sweet Home Chicago” by Michael Novo

Runner’s Up

“Something Blue” by Carol DeAnda

Best of Show

“Muted” by Megan Drane

BVP 5/10/2019

Feb 13, 2019     Digital Image Competition

      We had 198 entries from 29 makers. The breakdown is as follows:

108 Portraits

            41 Illustrative

            15 Wedding

            16 Commercial

            16 Artist

            2 Albums

            21 B&W from the above categories.

The judges discussed many of the images as Challenges. This is where we learn the most from the judges’ opinions.

We had 61 that scored 80 or above (President’s Award) 61/198 or 31%. 

We had 15 that scored 85 – 89, and 2 scored 90, 1 at 91 and 2 at 97.

I want to thank my great print crew: John Tulipano, Alejandro Mimo, Beth Genengels and Michael Novo. 

Thanks to the judges. They were Robert Hawkins (Jury Chair, Iowa), Lisa Dillon and Bryan Welsh from Oregon, Bert Behnke and Dan Thornton (Southern Illinois).

Sincerely,

Bruce Van Pelt, Chairman

Awards

Best Black & White

“Between Heaven and Earth” by Kerri Weiss

Best Artist

“Among the Giants” by Megan Drane

Runner’s Up

“Beware the Looking Glass” by Megan Drane

“Big Brother’s Summer Lessons” by Megan Drane

Best Portrait

“He’s Been Known to Cure Narcolepsy” by Travis Patenaude

Runner’s Up

“Shaggy” by Laura Dajoraite

“Dancer’s Repose” by April Graves

Best Illustrative

“Between Heaven and Earth” by Kerri Weiss

Runner’s Up

“Fallen” by Maria Heineman

“Exit Point” by Michael Lee

“Gramps Garage” by Beth Genengles

Best Wedding

“Warm My Heart” by Carol DeAnda

Runner’s Up

“Timeless Quiet” by Carrie White

Best Commercial

“End of the Day” by Kathryn Northcott

Runner’s Up

“The Design Exponent” by Joseph Fenwick

“Classic Packard” by Kathryn Northcott

“His & Hers Toys” by Kathryn Northcott

Best of Show

“Between Heaven and Earth” by Kerri Weiss

BVP 2/14/2019

PPANI    February 13, 2019     All Day Print Competition

Awards

Best Black & White

“Between Heaven and Earth” by Kerri Weiss

Best Artist

“Among the Giants” by Megan Drane

Runner’s Up

“Beware the Looking Glass” by Megan Drane

“Big Brother’s Summer Lessons” by Megan Drane

Best Portrait

“He’s Been Known to Cure Narcolepsy” by Travis Patenaude

Runner’s Up

“Shaggy” by Laura Dajoraite

“Dancer’s Repose” by April Graves

Best Illustrative

“Between Heaven and Earth” by Kerri Weiss

Runner’s Up

“Fallen” by Maria Heineman

“Exit Point” by Michael Lee

“Gramps Garage” by Beth Genengles

Best Wedding

“Warm My Heart” by Carol DeAnda

Runner’s Up

“Timeless Quiet” by Carrie White

Best Commercial

“End of the Day” by Kathryn Northcott

Runner’s Up

“The Design Exponent” by Joseph Fenwick

“Classic Packard” by Kathryn Northcott

“His & Hers Toys” by Kathryn Northcott

Best of Show

“Between Heaven and Earth” by Kerri Weiss

BVP 2/14/2019

https://www.ppa.com/articles/world-photographic-cup-team-usa-2019-announced

PPANI

October 10, 2018      Digital Image Competition

      We had 60 entries from 11 makers. The breakdown is as follows:

39 Portraits

7 Illustrative

6 Wedding

5 Commercial

3 Artist

8 B&W from the above categories.

We had 35 that scored 80 or above (President’s Award) 35/60 or 58%. 

We had 8 that scored 85 – 89, and 3 scored above 90.

I want to thank my great print crew: John Tulipano, Alejandro Mimo, Megan Drane, Beth Genengels and Michael Novo. Thanks to Bert Behnke for serving as Jury Foreman.

Thanks to my fellow judges Pete Rezac and Peggy Sue Seehafer.

Sincerely,

Bruce Van Pelt, Chairman 10/12/18

Awards

Best of Show

Best Portrait

“On Pointe” - Jerry Alt

Best Commercial

Best Black & White

 “The Green Mill Chicago” - Michael Novo 

Best Illustrative

“Flowers are a Girl’s Best Friend” - Barbara Breitsameter 

Best Artist

“Beware the Looking Glass” - Megan Drane

Best Wedding

“Speakeasy Light Painting” - Michael Novo