As I was sitting through multiple hours of the WPPI 16×20 Image Competition earlier this year… patiently waiting for my images to come up and nervously anticipating how the judging panel was going to critique my images, I had an epiphany. If I wanted to better my odds at meriting in the competition, I needed to shoot with less pressure to satisfy a client’s needs. I needed a session where I wasn’t trying to create 25+ gorgeous images for my client; I needed a session where I was trying to create one great image for the sake of competition.

[Tweet “Shooting for Image Competition”]

It’s nice to shoot outside the grind of wedding or senior season. And, that’s what this session was all about. I wanted to shoot without the pressure of having to deliver images to an actual client. I wanted to create images that were just for me and competition. I invited two of my senior clients, asked them to bring their senior year’s prom dresses and away we went. I slowed down my shooting pace, really thought things through and set up some shots/angles/lighting that I normally wouldn’t have done during a commissioned shoot.

Shooting for Image Competition

It was nice to experiment a bit with my lights and modifiers and really look for the angles that weren’t so evident to me. I really tried to look outside the box, which I am generally pretty bad at. I tried to find ways that I normally would not shoot an image. I tried really hard to create an epic image to submit to image competition, but I’m not sure I was successful. I guess I’ll find out at next year’s WPPI.

Here are a few more of my favorite images from the shoot:

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