by Merri Melde-Endurance.net
December 10 2021
Linda Sherrill of Justus Photography based in Alamogordo, New Mexico, has been a member of the PPA (Professional Photographers of America) since 2014. PPA is a group of around 25,000 photographers in the US, Mexico, and Canada.
The organization holds two international print competitions each year. Linda entered three of her images in this year’s September event in Atlanta. Out of 5901 entries, only 1040 received Image Excellence awards, and around 2000 were merited. Two of Linda’s images, ‘Another Day at the Office’ and ‘Spring Branding’ merited, and ‘Ride and Slide’ won an Image Excellence award. “That one was judged by 10 judges, and it was a unanimous IE award,” Linda says.
“There are 12 different criteria that are their judging points, and those have to be adhered to. For example, you have to see direction of light, and the title that you give it gets judged - the impact that it has on the judges when they open their computer screen and look at it for the first time.
“The judges only have 60 seconds to judge the images. They know exactly to look for.”
Linda is two merits short of becoming a ‘Master Photographer’ in the Photographic Open category. To become a Master of Photography, a member needs 26 merits. Thirteen have to be in competition, and the other 13 have to be in service which qualifies as attending education, taking classes such as photography technique, Photoshop, or basics of starting a photo business. It’s a fierce competition to just get into some of the classes.
“The MP certification proves that you have invested time and money in education, and obviously it’s important to you, and then you also took that and translated it into images that would win in competition.”
Master Photographers can teach on whatever their expertise is, so Linda will soon be able to teach classes on photographing horses and dogs and the people who love them.
“PPA does some wonderful things. They’re there to support us. We have an annual national convention, coming up in January in Washington DC, and all of my images will hang in the gallery there, as well as everybody else’s that merited or got an image of excellence award.
“This year was special, I’ve never done this well in competition in one year before. It just makes your client pictures so much better. Trying to comply with competition rules really ups your game.”
Just recently, ‘Ride and Slide’ was also nominated for a GIA (Grand Imaging Award) which is the highest award PPA bestows. That judging will take place next month during the PPA Annual convention in DC.
“PPA is the premiere educational place to go when you want to learn about photography. It’s a very supportive group. The classes teach me how to make my client images better. I can’t tell you how much my career has gotten better by print competition.”
Linda started photographing Arabian horses at a horse show for a friend in 1992. After that, she was hooked. She started shooting Endurance rides in the midwest in 1996, and is a member of the Endurance Ride Photographers Guild. This is a group of around two dozen professional photographers from around the USA dedicated to documenting AERC Endurance ride events in the USA.
“Shooting Endurance rides is a lot of fun. I don’t compete anymore, but getting out there with a camera and watching the riders go by is still huge to me, because it’s really about the people - your friends, and the friends that you make.”
See more on Linda at:
http://www.endurance.net/advertisers/EnduranceRidePhotographersGuild/LindaSherrill.html
Linda’s website:
www.lindasherrill.com
