WPJA Q2 Contest

On July 28th, I photographed John and Monica's wedding at Sun Valley, Idaho (check out their blog entry and slideshow). Monica wore high heels on her wedding day. While her shoes were beautiful, they did not work all that well on the soft lawn next to the Duck Pond where she was married. In fact, if I remember her story right--as her heels began sinking into the lawn she flipped a shoe off to stand barefoot. Her flip sent the high heel right into the pond! It was a fantastic moment filled with laughter and smiles. Their officiant bent down and retrieved Monica's soaking wet shoe from the pond, and I captured the moment with my camera.

My good friend, Brett Butterstein, and I are members of the Wedding Photojournalism Association. This association is great for many reasons--but especially because of their quarterly contests! Every quarter, as members of the WPJA we sit down and select our favorite images and submit them to judges with incredible credentials. Once a submission deadline is past, the agonizing wait to see which images will win top honors begins.

Sometimes Brett and I share which images we are likely to submit to these contests. When Brett saw the shoe shot, he immediately thought it would place in the top three of the next contest. Today, the results were released and....Whaboom--First Place for Details (found)! It is fun to win first, but the great story about Monica's sinking heel and Brett's spot-on guess made the win all the more enjoyable!

Congrats to Brett who also placed well in the Weather category!

Here is Monica's soakin' wet heel....