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My daughter Julie Proudfoot and our friend Dawn Havrelock  attended the SYNC convention for Senior Photography in Florida.
Afterwards they were fortunate enough to  photograph Sarah and Chris in Ybor City for some romantic fun engagement images – in and around the city of Ybor.

What an opportunity – they did a great job and had a lot of fun.

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/9893414 w=500&h=400]

I just got back from PPA – Professional Photographers of America convention in Nashville and really enjoyed it, Julie is excited to go to SYNC – for high school senior photography in Florida real soon and will also be at WPPI – (Wedding Portrait Photographers International) in Vegas in March. We are both active in DPPA (Detroit) – I’m a Past President and Julie is in line to be. We’ll be at PPM (Michigan) in Troy in Feb ….

It is so important to stay current & keep up with all the latest cutting edge changes in our industry – It does make a difference and sets us apart. In this day, experience and willingness to push ourselves to be current should count more. This is all we do for a living. It is a labor of passion and we love it!

This is a time for looking ahead to what this new year can have in store for us. We are looking forward to continuing our contemporary weddings – this has always been our main passion and nitche for almost 20 years. We would also love to venture more actively into the contemporary high school senior portrait market -… if you know of any juniors or seniors who would love to be among our “Models” – give us a call.

Be sure to keep up with us on our Facebook Fan Page

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?filter=lf#/album.php?profile=1&id=109141840457
or just search for Wally Spice Photography

We just got back from PPM – Professional Photographers of Michigan Fall Training Camp at Chrystal Mountain resort in Northern Michigan. Had a great time and learned so much. We had 5 girls sharing a great house on the grounds.
LOVED Scott and Adina and all the speakers and vendors who made it so
special. Wally won the folio competition in the open category for the Glacier photo and Julie won in the wedding and Children’s. We received beautiful plaques in the shape of the state of Michigan.
You should have seen Julie in the TOGA we made out of a sheet
from our bed! Priceless! More Pics to come!
This is the group shot of all of us. I’m going to try to get a larger version of this and also add some of our photos taken.

Julie is so is excited and proud to have been slotted to be Vice President next year to the Detroit Professional Photographers Association!! That means she will be President in 2012-2013. “I look forward to helping DPPA grow! It is such a great association to be a part of!! ”

This is already her 3rd year on the board of directors. Her term as vice president officially starts in June of 2010, but this gives her the opportunity to start lining up some great speakers now, since that will be her main duty. She already has some great ideas. Then she will be President elect to work with the speakers she brought in the following year, and then she will be our president in June 2012 – June 2013.

She will do a fantastic job and I am so proud of her. She was such a great support to me when I was the president 2007-2008 and I will be so proud to support her through this amazing journey. 2 generations of DPPA presidents! What an honor!!
I am SO proud of her!!!

Along with her official duties as a board member every year, Julie has been our smiling friendly “raffle Girl” at DPPA for many years, she has perfected this position – this is her in charge of choosing the winners for the 50-50 and winners of the many donations we received from our vendors at the last meeting in August with David Humphry on senior high school photography.
It is going to be a fun adventure that she and all the members of the DPPA will enjoy.

Our kick off meeting for the Detroit Professional Photographers meeting Tuesday evening was fantastic. David Humphrey did such a great job presenting his style of fabulous seniors and had us all inspired. The room was packed – we had over 100 in att…endance. A great way to start out the season! David is a renowned master & expert on cutting edge senior photography – speaking all over the country. He is one of our own from right here in the Flint area, he is also a friend. THANK YOU for sharing your talent!

This is a link to the album of photos I have on my Facebook page that anyone can see, even if you are not on Facebook!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=32373&id=1417072807&l=0ce96fbcd9

After 6 years on the board of directors,this last year as Past president was my last. It is such an honor to serve such a great organization and I will never forget this time. I was honored with my Service award medallion (now I have a “dangly” also), presented by John Glass, Past president just before me, and presented a surprise one to Steve Post. I presented Clint with his Past President’s plaque and enjoyed being up at the podium quite a bit. The biggest surprise was that I received the 2009 Wedding Album of the Year award – a beautiful award to proudly display! It was for my FINAO album from the zoo ( On my web page album menu link – 2nd album down) http://www.wallyspicephotography.com/bridalalbums/bridalindex.html Julie and I also both received 2nd place awards for our Folios – Julie for the portrait category with Ella’s Day in the Life, and mine in the Illustrative category with the Matanuska Glacier in Alaska

See my face book album:

We designed some folios of our work and entered them into the  Detroit Professional Photographers Association in April in the 3 categories – wedding, portrait and illustrative – for both Julie and myself – Wally.  These were 10×20 single image photos on a hard cardboard backing.  This is the same size as an album spread and can also be framed.  There were quite a few entries; they were judged by our peers and we will find out the results at the DPPA banquet in June.

Wedding Folio category

Portrait  Category

Illustrative category

On June 17th, we held our anual banquet for the Detroit Professional Photographers Association at the Roostertail in Detroit for a “Night out on the River”. It was a great evening – Julie was the banquet Chairperson and did an awesome job – everyone enjoyed the food, the ambiance of a great location and the camaraderie of friends.

For me it was an ending to a great year as the president that I will never forget.  My gavel always looked so great on my display shelf among the antique camera collection.  But John Glass, the Past president before me, presented me with a new permanent gavel on a plaque for me to enjoy as “Past President”.  I will be on the board for another year as the Past President and look forward to serving this great organization another year.  Julie will be the secretary for the upcoming year and as she has been doing for so long so well – she will continue to be our “raffle girl”.

We thank our newsletter Editor Hugh McLean for taking our formal background photos and Brian McElhone for taking the candids. Thanks also to my brother in law and his wife Steve and Pat for taking some photos and being there to support Julie and I. Congratulations to everyone who received prizes and honors.

I have the files for all images taken, so if someone wants any, please contact me.

http://www.wallyspicephotography.com/blog/wp-admin/www.wallyspicephotography.com
wally@wallyspicephotography.com

I am the president of the Detroit Professional Photographers Association and March 11 we hosted Jerry Ghionis – a word renown wedding photographer and speaker  – from Australia. We were fortunate to get him to stop here on the way from Australia to Las Vegas where he will be speaking at WPPI – the Wedding and Portrait Photographers International Convention.

We filled the house with over 200 photographers – and we all marveled at his phenomenal photographic talent, his passionate and entertaining delivery and savy business and marketing advice.  As the president, it was my priveledge to introduce him and run the program. He spoke all day and again in the evening for our regular meeting.  Julie is also on the board and did a great job as our raffel girl – we had so many great gifts donated by our vendors that everyone wanted to buy them.

Times like this makes me really proud and enjoy my role as president of this great  organization that does so much to keep photographers current on the latest advances and trends around the world.

Our state wide PPM organization held its annual convention right here in Ypsilanti this week and we enjoyed the programs, speakers, trade show, banquet etc etc -  all this had to offer at the beautiful eclectic ultra modern Marriott.  As president of the Detroit Professional Photographers Association, I was also representing our local DPPA.  There are 4 statewide local affiliate groups under Michigan, but Detroit is the largest one.  Michigan is then an affiliate of PPA _ which is Professional Photographers of America – which I also belong to.

We loved the modern lobby area and even took some time to take some images of each other with our friends.  We had a lot of fun!

June 19th was the end of the year banquet for the Detroit Professional Photographers Association. held in Levy’s restaurant in Ford Field in Detroit. Our theme was “Mad Hatters” and we all had a lot of fun with our “hats”! Over 100 people enjoyed the event, we had a great dinner and then went on to our presentations. After Past President John Glass made his outgoing speech he handed the gavel to me and I became the new President of the association.  What an honor – I was both thrilled and excited and a little nervous as I made my acceptance speech. I then got to introduce the new board of directors – we’re going to have a great year – as we now all have different “hats”!  Julie is now also an elected board member and It’s great to have her on the board with me. I was thrilled to have family there to cheer me on – my daughter Julie, my brother Gunther and his wife Sandy and my brother & sister-in-law Pat and Steve. Hat’s off to the new board!

These were our own candids – I’ll add some official group photos etc when I get them.

Travis Broxton – our speaker at DPPA last Tuesday has a great web site and is also starting to run a blog – he talked about his trip to Michigan and even used my collages (in post below) as images from his experience here – I'm flattered.

His site is: www.broxtonart.com – you can get to his site or blog from here – Check it out -

On May 15, our Detroit Professional Photographer’s Association hosted a great speaker from Denver Colorado – Travis Broxton.  In his program called “Rocky Mountain High” he talked about his journey to success as a high end wedding photographer and was so open to sharing his knowledge and experience. Julie and I picked him up at the airport and had the opportunity to show him a little bit of our Detroit – we all had so much fun.  Kim joined us for a great dinner at Bahama Breeze before the program and after wards several of us went out to Champs for a Little more conversation and fun. We have such great opportunities at organizations like this to learn from great talent like Travis from across the country.

This was our last speaker of the year – As Vice President and as President elect I have been the one instrumental in bringing in the speakers and making sure everything runs smoothly with their programs.  I sure have enjoyed it and will miss this aspect of it.  We only have the Banquet left this June and this is where I will begin my office as the new president.  Wow – I am so excited – and yet nervous too.

Spring is finally here and we are enjoying the greenery and flowers in our gardens.  Hope everyone enjoyed a happy Mother’s day – either with your mother, or as a  mother.

On May 8th I joined the group of Eastern Star members from Chapters throughout Oakland County to travel to Holland Michigan for the tulip festival on a bus tour.  I really enjoyed taking  photos of the many phenomenal tulips. We were thrilled to also take a side trip to the Holland Light House – which looked especially wonderful in the foggy mist.  I have always enjoyed lighthouses throughout the years.

 

Julie and I have also been extremely busy with DPPA – the “Detroit Professional Photographers Association”. This year, as President elect,  I have worked with the speakers that I brought in and Julie has been active as our “Raffle
I thank everyone for their continuing support. Take a look at www.dppa.net

The year is soon coming to an end and on June 12th I will be installed as the next president of the organization. What an honor and a tremendous responsibility – WOW – I’m really looking forward to it.  Julie is also running for the board of directors and the ballots are now coming in.  Good luck to her and the other candidates.

We just got back from representing DPPA at the PPM (Professional Photographers of Michigan) in Dearborn. That is also a great statewide group and a lot of fun.

Fuzzy and Shirley Duenkel were our terrific speakers for our all day program on April 1st – they are nationally renown speakers on seniors and showed us how to “go Away” with on location photography.  We had over 160 attendees and that was the highest attendance yet – So many great opportunities to learn so much more…. We appreciate the great vendors at the mini trade show also.

The highlight of our year – and probably the most work has been our “Shoot Out with the Pros” – we had over 100 attendees – many who were not from our group who came to learn from the many speakers, presenters, and vendors.  So much was going on at the same time – I called this “Organized chaos”

I have heard many great comments and compliments from calling the presentation “- in my opinion – the highlight of the year show for DPPA,”  to “the  Shoot Out looked fantastic and everyone seemed to really like it. It had a totally different look/feel than anything I have seen at either DPPA or PPM. This is the type of event that provides something for everyone and I do not have any problem with so many items going on at the same time. I think it adds an energy-of-sorts to the event that you cannot get from a ‘one-speaker/event-at-a-time’ type of setup. CONGRATULATIONS WALLY AND YOUR TEAM OF AWESOME HELPERS!”

The November 21 Detroit Professional Photographers Association meeting was a print competition -  We follow the very strict PPA (Professional Photographers Of America) Rules, even though, as a local affiliate we do not actually earn merits. This is the every first time I have ever entered.  Normally Candid wedding images don’t score as high because we don’t take the time to really set them up to perfection during a hectic wedding. I did have a few I wanted to try though and my “Ring Bear’er” at the Detroit Zoo did OK. I got out some of my favorite images from my Alaska travels  and did the best with my whale “Actic Bliss” which scored high enough to earn a merit. Julie entered her Vegas infra red “Vegas Peace”.  It was actually very interesting and exciting.

The Detroit Professional Photographers Association was proud to present Vicki Taufer for all All Day seminar Sunday November 12 at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Novi.  She is one of the most sought after speakers and gave a dynamic program on the secrets of running her extremely successful portrait business – V Gallery in Illinois.  As president elect it has been my job to bring in our speakers and she was the one that I wanted to bring in the most. We had a a great turn out of about 100 photographers. The board members all worked hard and we also thank the many sponsors and vendors that helped make it possible.

Our regular meeting for the Detroit Professional Photographers Association was held Tuesday Oct.17.   We had a great program on “Marketing your Art”- given by Terry Lawrence  – one of our local Photographers from Whitmore Lake and Tina and Michael Timmons from Frankenmuth Michigan. Very Interesting and Informative.

For any photographers reading this – be sure to join us for our first All Day Program November 12th with Vicki Taufer of V-Gallery at the Embessy Suites Hotel in Novi.  She is one of the most saught after, dynamite speakers and this will be a phenomenal program. Call or e-mail me for more info if you need it – it is NOT too late to make reservations! 

I am the official Photographer for the Michigan Grand Chapter, Order of the Eastern Star – a Fraternal Masonic Group that both men and women can belong to.  This week was their Yearly convention in Battle Creek – their Grand Chapter Session for the Plater-Haynor Grand Family and the Installation for the new Parks-Wheeler Grand Family.  This is something I have photographed for the last 13 years.  Faith Dew works the main production, but was also honored this year as an escorting grand page – so she was on the floor during most of the actual sessions, working very hard the rest of the time.  Steve was also helping me photograph. It was very exciting and busy and very hectic.  We had 2 laptops, a main computer, and 2 printers in our room, printing out the framed groups to sell right there and the proofing sheets. We had an area at the back of the arena to display our images and sell, thanks to the help of Pat, Lisa and Shari at the table.

Images will be online about mid-November for this 2006 session.  The images from the 2005 session are also still online and available.  Go to my main website, use the “Event Proofing” tab, click on the “list of active events” at the bottom of the page, enter your e-mail address, find and click on the event.  No passwords are needed.

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