If you want to see images from some of the best photographers in the world – check out Fearless Photographers.  I am honored and ecstatic to be a part of such a talented group of photographers who see light, color, contrast, emotion, moments and beauty that is both simplistic and breathtaking at the same time.  Gone are the days of just taking pretty pictures with which to remember the wedding day.  It’s been kicked up quite a few notches, folks.

Here is my image that placed in the Round 5 competition.  Yes, I won an award for taking a photo of a few butts!

While you’re at it, you should peruse the entire gallery of winning images from this round – Fearless Photographers Round 5 – and be sure to click LIKE for the ones you like as they narrow it down for a best in show!!!

It’s been a while and I am feeling in the contest hosting type of mood.  Details are being worked out so just stay tuned for the big announcement.  And I mean BIG this time!!!  This contest will call for creativity and use various social media so add this blog to your RSS feed, follow Metimages on Twitter and become a fan of Metimages on Facebook!

There are times, as a professional photographer, when I find myself humbled. And awed.  Usually it has to do with viewing inspiring images that placed in competitions.  The winning images from the Winter 2010 International Society of Professional Wedding Photographers contest were announced this week and I must say I am very moved, motivated, honored and of course humbled by the winning images.

I feel the winter competition is one of the most competitive and intense since hundreds of photographers have an entire year’s worth of images to pull from and submit.  I don’t envy the judges that have to go through thousands of images and judge them on content and quality.

Please take the time to have a look and get a sense of the visual experience of the best of the best in wedding photography around the world. ISPWP Winter 2010 Contest.

I received the email notification that the entries had been judged and the link to the winning images was online. I held my breathe as I scrolled through the winning images in each category – pausing to take in the beauty of each one.  Finally I uttered a simple sigh of relief as I came across one of my images that placed.

ISPWP Winter 2010 The Wedding Dress Category – 20th Place

Here are some of my images that have placed in previous ISPWP Competitions:

Summer 2010 ISPWP Contest

Spring 2010 ISPWP Contest

Winter 2009 ISPWP Contest

Summer 2009 ISPWP Contest

Spring 2009 ISPWP Contest

The International Society of Professional Wedding Photographers is a unique organization in that they have strict criteria for the membership – you have be a professional photographer with experience, talent and professionalism and have a peer review before being granted acceptance.

Step 1: Take a photo of SNOWPOCALYPSE 2011 and post it on the Metropolitan Imageworks Facebook Fanpage by February 10th.

Step 2: On February 1tth I will open up the SNOWPOCALYPSE 2011 album to a voter’s choice and the image with the most Likes by the end of the voting period wins a portrait session of their choice, a $500 value!  Runner up will win a $100 Metropolitan Imageworks gift card for products or services.

Rules: Photos must be of SNOWPOCALYPSE 2011. One entry per person. Participants must not earn their primary income from photography.

I recently switched to a Blackberry and my usual a.m. habit is to wake up, roll over, grab my phone from my nightstand and check email and of course Facebook updates.  I was very excited to see the notification email from the International Society of Professional Wedding Photographers, ISPWP, that the contest results were available on the website. I clicked over to it on my phone and it was like molasses dripping off a spoon waiting for the images to load. I did make it though three categories and found two of my images that placed and then I headed to my home office to view them bigger (and quicker) on my laptop.

Ceremony Category, 11th Place

Movement & Motion Category, 7th Place

Lisa & Todd, July 4, 2009 of the Metropolitan Imageworks Best Wedding Image of 2009 contest.  A huge thank-you to all the couples who participated and to everyone who took the time to vote. We received an incredible 149 total votes! Lisa and Todd’s wedding image won with 59 of those votes!

The winning image will be made into a 16×20 Canvas Gallery Wrap and presented to Lisa and Todd!

Congratulations!!!

The Metimages Best Wedding Image of 2009 contest is open until midnight central time on March 1st so you have 5 more days to vote!

Go to the contest blog post, look at all the images and register and leave a comment for your favorite image. Please include your name in your registration!

Best Wedding Image of 2009 Blog Post

2009 marked another fantastic year for the team at Metropolitan Imageworks and I wanted to celebrate. We’re having a contest for the Best Image of 2009 and it will be decided by a public vote!  I asked all of our wedding clients to share their favorite image from their wedding and tell me why. The consensus was that it was very hard to decide and pick just one, that’s the best response I could hope for. Fortunately, each participating couple was finally able to narrow it down.

Everyone’s invited to vote!  You can simply place your vote by leaving your name & email address and a comment at the end of the post below (one per person please). We will be verifying email addresses and IP addresses.  The image with the most votes will be made into a 16×20 canvas wrap and given to the winning couple.  Voting will be open from now until March 1st.

(Hint: Click on the image to enlarge if you need a bigger view.)

Ready? Set? Vote!

#1 – Niki & Peter – 04.25.09 – This one is my favorite because it captures the time of month that we got married, late April where the leaves still have not started coming back on the trees. Also, I like the moment it captures of just Peter and I with nature and no one else.

#2 – Eileen & James – 08.08.09 – It was 95+ degrees on the day of my wedding, and my father had been joking that he was going to wear shorts.  I kept saying that it was fine by me, but my mother told him he had to wear a full suit.  When he went to get ready at the hotel he realized that the dry cleaner had not included his pants with his suit jacket!  He would be forced to wear his shorts! I loved the AC/DC feel of the look, and his pants did show up in time for the ceremony, but heck, the man is 70 years old.  If he wants to wear his shorts he can. Since I was wearing a less traditional short dress, I loved that my father had his less traditional sport coat and shorts combo. It makes me laugh every time I look at it.  So while I adore all the pictures of my wonderful husband and me…  that’s the one that stands out.

#3 – Katie & Tom – 06.27.09 – I love it because it really shows everyone’s personality, and the spirit of the day, which was joyous and excited and ready to party!!

#4 – Natalie & Anthony – 11.07.09 – To me, this image shows a fun, happy, casual couple who are saying to the camera “we can take on the world together”.  This pose is not a standard pose and I love it for that.

#5 – Nora & Russell – 08.01.09 – Something about being in nature and the wind blowing that day, remember?  The black and white gives it an old feel and the church in the background looks great. We are not the only focus in the picture, its like nature and us are one.

#6 – Emily & Michael – 09.12.09 – This was taken right as the ceremony ended, and we turned to walk back down the aisle.  The two of us are so intimate and seemingly unaware of anyone else in the room.

#7 – Michelle & Don 02.15.09 – I like a couple of the cake pics due to the comedy factor. I think this time I’ll choose the one where I’m holding my nose as Don gets ready to feed me the cake. It’s my favorite because you can almost hear everyone laughing as I anticipate the worst. I just knew he was going to be coaxed into shoving it up my nose and I didn’t want to walk around the rest of the night with icing in my nose, and everyone thinking it was “something else”! The next pic almost goes with it because then it ended up down my dress!

#8 – Kristi & Jake – 12.12.09 – The picture captures all of the emotions from our special day. It was magical, romantic, and absolutely perfect to us. We truly felt like we were part of a fairytale, and this photo shows just that.

#9 – Jenny & Christian – 06.26.09 – This is our favorite picture because after all the planning from the flowers to the invitations to the photographer (yay Rachael!), this is what it is all really about: both of us saying our vows in front of our family and friends.

#10 – Kate & Josh – 03.21.09 – It was taken in Daley Plaza in front of the Picasso as were dancing, enjoying ourselves (and the unseasonably warm weather for March). The one word to describe this photo is “whimsical”.  Having such a beautiful photo in front of the Picasso, a Chicago icon, is icing on the (wedding) cake.

#11 – Linda & Roger – 05.24.09 – The reason we love this photo is because it captures the whole day for us and every time we see it, it brings us right back.  The light wind picking up my veil, the sunshine, having Mango there and our happiness as we look forward to walking down the aisle.

#12 – Erin & John – 10.11.09 – Our favorite wedding picture is the black and white picture where John and I are kissing on the railroad tracks at the train station. We are walking and our backs are toward the camera.  We love this picture because it has the gorgeous clock tower in the background.  It also is like we are starting out a wonderful journey together.

#13 – Dusty & D.J. – 07.11.09 – This image is my favorite because it is a piece of artwork. The colors, composition and feeling of the image are absolutely beautiful. It also portrays the tone of the day so well; complete joy!

#14 – Christina & Jon – 07.25.09 – We loved how this picture captured the action and emotion of the moment… The looks on out faces are priceless!

#15 – Rebecca & Ryan – 09.19.09 – We love this picture because there is something intimate about it, even with neither of us looking at each other or the camera.  We also like the design of the architecture behind us.  The composition is perfect and the color is soft.

#16 – Lisa & Todd – 07.04.09 – Among so many of our amazing photos, this one became one of our personal favorites.  It caught a quiet moment between the two of us that captured everything we are:  happy, joyous, casual, silly, giggly and absolutely in love.  The softness of the photo also portrays so well of who we are and the beautiful setting of our day.

#17 – Mandy & Anton – 05.09.09 – There were many favorites to pick from, but I love this one because it captures the water-front yet laid-back setting and our complete joy at our wedding!

#18 – Nikki & Scott – 07.12.09 – We really liked this black and white picture because it not only included the whole bridal party, but it captured everyone’s excitement on our special day!

#19 – Lauren & Jeffrey – 08.01.09 – It captures the pure bliss I was feeling on the most wonderful day of my life – so far!

#20 – Nicole & Don – 06.05.09 – Seeing that Don was up to his usual shenanigans, Nicole selected the perfect “Teacher Look” to let him know that Rachael wanted us to pose BY the Kangaroo, not IN the kangaroo.

#21 – Ashlea & Cody – 06.20.09 – This is my favorite picture because I think that it shows off walking off into our new lives together and the lighting and my dress look amazing!

Thanks for participating!

Rachael & the Metimages Team – Victor, Elizabeth, Kira & Ariel

The International Society for Professional Wedding Photographers, ISPWP, just announced the results for the Summer 2009 Contest and I am pleased to announce that I placed in TWO categories! One of my images took 9th place in The Wedding Dress Category and another one of my images took 10th place in the Bridal Party Portrait Category.

I love waking up to emails in my inbox announcing the contest results are online and then scrolling through the winning images with baited breath and nervous anticipation. I’m not sure I can describe the high that washes over when you scroll onto one of your very own images and realize your visual imagery ranks with the incredible photographers who make the ISPWP an outstanding organization with unmatched talent and credibility.

The Wedding Dress:

Bridal Party Portrait:

And just for fun, here is a link to my blog post in June about my winning image in the Spring 2009 ISPWP contest.

This photo, taken at my December 31, 2008 wedding in Arizona, placed 9th in the Venue or Location category of the International Society of Professional Wedding Photographers Spring 2009 contest.

www.ispwp.com