Hayes & Fisk

Hayes & Fisk Brings home the GOLD

We and thrilled to write this Hayes & Fisk Brings home the GOLD post. The Hayes & Fisk Photography team have been members of the Virginia Professional Photographers Association for many years.  Mary, Jamie and Jessica (plus Andee and Debbie from our sister studio, Real Life Studios) look forward to the annual convention every year.

A couple of weeks ago we all made our way down to Portsmouth, Virginia for this epic event.  There was so much buzz and excitement in the air.  Mary currently serves as the Education and Events Chair for the association. Also, she had assisted in lining up a world-class group of speakers and educators.  It was truly several days of some of the industry’s top influencers there sharing and giving back to photographers.

Jamie and Andee currently serve as Image Competition chairs. They managed to organize a record-breaking number of entries that resulted in two full days of image judging by trained and approved International jurors.  There were over 560 images judged this year!  This is an outstanding number and there was a lot of competition, a lot of GREAT competition.  And we cannot stress enough that this is a very tough competition. It is a sanctioned judging using very strict rules and only trained and qualified jurors.  The judging is done anonymously. It is in our opinion that we have most valid and fair judging in the state of Virginia.

Hayes & Fisk is pleased to announce that our team did very well at this year’s Awards Banquet.  We cannot share the winning images and albums yet because many of these will go on to be judged at the National District Competition and then hopefully on to the International Competition in August, however, we will keep you all posted as we can.

The following awards and designations were received and we cannot be more proud of all of our hard work and dedication to Professional Photography.  In addition, we want to thank each and every one of our Hayes & Fisk clients.  We know we have the most amazing clients in the world, but it’s you and your loyalty to us that truly keeps us motivated every single day to create award-winning images.  We are beyond proud to share that we have always chosen to enter our client’s very own work, meaning what we send off to be judged by our peers is what is hanging in many of your homes, published on your commercial websites and printed in heirloom albums on your coffee table.   You are our inspiration and we are just so glad that we can bring home the GOLD year after year in your honor!  So here is the list and we promise to share the images when we can!

Best Portrait of a Man
Best Portrait of a Woman
Best Wedding Portrait
Best Wedding Candid
Court of Honor Wedding Candid
Best Portrait of a Bride
Court of Honor Portrait of a Bride
Best Wedding Album
Court of Honor High School Senior Portrait

Jamie not only won 6 Blue Ribbons, but he won first place, for all 6 of his entries.  Along with Mary, he won Best Wedding Album in the state of Virginia (this is an award that they have won two years in a row and numerous times before, their wedding albums continue to be chosen as the Best of the Best).  Jessica was honored to with 2^nd Place for her Wedding Candid entry (lost first place to Jamie!) and Mary won 2^nd Place for her Bridal Portrait (lost first place to Jamie!) and 2^nd Place for her High School Senior Portrait entry as well as 1^st Place with Jamie for their multi-maker Wedding Album.  Mary also had 5 blue ribbons images that scored very well in the competition.

Jamie and Mary both had image cases that scored so high that they were named as two of the Top 10 Professional Photographers in the state of Virginia.  And (drumroll please…)  Jamie was named (for the second year in a row) Photographer of the Year!!!  This is a HUGE honor and means so much coming from the Professional Photographers of Virginia image competition.  Again, this image competition is conducted by VERY strict rules and only judged by trained and educated professional photographers.  We are all so over the moon excited about all of the honors and awards.

And, before the night ended we received just a few more honors.  Jessica received her first professional photography degree from VPPA.  She received the Associate Fellow of Photography degree which means she has worked very hard and earned enough credits to qualify for this prestigious honor.  Andee was honored with the highest award you can receive from the VPPA and that is the Virginia Award, which is to honor and recognize her for her volunteerism, generous heart and giving spirit towards our association.

And finally, Jamie received the PPA National Award.  This is a national designation given to our state affiliate by our National Association (PPA – Professional Photographers of America).  The PPA President was there to present this to Jamie as well as our VPPA President.   The PPA National Award is the highest honor you can receive from PPA and is only given through a PPA Affiliate once a year.  The simple inscription on the plaque reads “for your service to professional photography” but we all know that it means far more than that.

So thank you for allowing us to share with each of you.  We are all very excited about our accomplishments.  And again we want you to know that it is you all, our clients that inspire us each and every day to bring home the GOLD!