Professional Photographers of America Announces Ella Carlson as Winner of Grand Imaging Award

Winners from the 2018 International Photographic Competition Revealed During Imaging USA 2019 in Atlanta, Georgia

Professional Photographers of America (PPA) presented the Grand Imaging Award last night at Imaging USA 2019, the largest annual conference and trade show for real professional photographers. The award went to Ella Carlson, EA-ASP, M.Photog.M.Artist.Cr., CPP, for her album Most Wanted in the Non-Event Album category.

Carlson, a leader in fine art photography, educator, and multiple award winner, was selected as the overall Grand Imaging Award winner out of a pool of ten category winners. The other winners were Roben Bellomo, M.Photog., CPP in the event album category, Cristie Reddehase, M.Photog.M.Artist.Cr. in the artist category, Erich Caparas picking up a win in the illustrative category and the animal category, Kimberly Smith in the general portrait category, Shannon Toews in the children category, Chris Vander Velde, M.Photog.M.Artist in the landscape category, Joshua Hanna, CPP in the high school senior portrait category, and Mario Munoz in the wedding category. Each category winner received a crystal award. Carlson received an award and an additional $1000 prize. Upon winning Carlson said, “Competition has meant more than I can even say. It’s been such a tremendous opportunity to learn. I’m so honored to be among this group of competitors.”

The Grand Imaging Award winners have been judged to be the very best of the 2018 PPA International Photographic Competition (IPC). The Grand Imaging Awards encourage photographers to up their creativity by pushing themselves through competition with each other, their peers. The Grand Imaging Award winner was selected from 5,073 entries. Carlson’s album was judged by a panel of 32 jurors to be the very best of images in this year’s loan collection.

In addition to the Grand Imaging Award, PPA awarded medalists from the IPC. Bronze medalists had all four of their submitted images earn merits. Silver medalists had one of their images entered into the Loan collection and on up to a four-for-four, “perfect” case for Diamond medalists. At this year’s ceremony, PPA awarded 209 bronze, 107 silver, 61 gold, 25 platinum and 18 diamond medalists. The night concluded with a presentation on the images selected for Team USA at the World Photographic Cup, the “Olympics of photography”, wherein 32 countries compete via images this April in Drammen, Norway. Team USA’s Best of Nations Award was given to photographer Michael Anthony.

District Photographic Competitions are held in June, followed by the International Photographic Competition each August. All PPA photographic competitions are open to the public. For more information, visit PPA.com/Competitions.

About PPA:
Professional Photographers of America (PPA) is the largest and longest-standing nonprofit photography trade association with a 150-year history. It currently helps 30,000+ pros elevate their craft and grow their business with resources, protection, and education, all under PPA’s core guiding principle of bridging the gap between what photographers do as artists and entrepreneurs and what consumers want.