We are excited to have placed 3rd in the Artistic Guild of the Wedding Photojournalist Association February contest. The AGWPJA is a new entity that allows image manipulation in the contests, the WPJA strictly prohibits photoshop retouching. We arepleased that we were able to place in the AGWPJA contest with an image that had very little photoshop manipulation. A touch of film grain was added but other than that the image was straight out of the raw converter. We think this shows that an image can have great artistic qualities without having to be overly worked up in photoshop. You can check out the AGWPJA at http://www.agwpja.com/

A few of the judges comments were: “1. Creative way to capture the event. the tonal range of this image is very appealing also! great job!2. The tabacco colored toning and grain help suggest and reinforce the cigar. Shallow DOF and low camera angle add a lot of interest.”