long time no blog

Well it's been a while since I was on here baring my soul; part of it has been because I had a very busy week and a half which was followed by a very humbling week and I have been struggling with how to communicate what I have been feeling. As you may or may not know a couple of weeks ago we were in the Ultimate Woman's Show here at Assiniboine downs, what you may not have known was that for the few days prior to that I was in London Ontario for meetings with the Presidents and Past Presidents of all the Provincial Professional Photography Associations. I spent two and a half days in meetings planning how the PPOC should function in the present as well as the future. It was humbling to be in the room with such an amazing group of people and no doubt at only 34 years of age and with a baby face to boot I was unmistakably the kid in the crowd. After meetings with this group I hopped onto an airplane and headed for home. I got home at about 1:00am, had a quick 4 hours of sleep and headed to the Ultimate Woman's show to show off what we do and meet some amazing people.

After a mostly sleepless week Sonya and I took the day off on Monday and went back to the office on Tuesday followed by our usual Tuesday night date (cuddling on the sofa and watching "how to look good naked") It was during our date time that the humbling process really began to go into hyper drive; the phone rang and it was Walter Janzen the PPOC (Professional Photographers of Canada) President calling from the annual awards banquet in London. Walter just wanted to call to inform me that two of my images from the image competition had done well, actually really well winning best in category for all of Canada. As I stood there Walter also told me that they were both chosen to tour the country as loan collection images (only 40 images in all of Canada are chosen for this) as a tribute to the very best in Canadian Professional Photography. Stunned I said thank you, found out who was bringing the trophies home for me and said goodnight.

I thought the humbling might be over for a while until the next week when I found out the the two Accreditation submissions that I had made to the PPOC were accepted and that I had just earned my MPA (Masters of Photographic Arts) as well as being the only photographer in Manitoba to be Nationally Accredited in Figure Study (Art Nudes) and the only photographer in Winnipeg to be Nationally Accredited in Maternity photography.

I am officially feeling very humbled as I am very aware of the quality of work being put out by the professional ranks in both Manitoba and in the rest of Canada. All I can say is that God has smiled on me and I am very grateful for the gifts.

Rod