Well Monday night was our August Central Illinois PPA Meeting. This month’s meeting was all about getting certified! (Insert Woot! Woot! and Cheers here!) Huge thank you to Pamela Cather of Reflections Etc for presenting on this topic! As someone who went to school, studied photography and graduated with a BFA in Photography and Design – getting certified wasn’t something initially on my list of things to do as I learned a lot of the certification requirements in school. However, being out of school for five years and with the growing number of photographers in the area – getting certified has been a growing desire in my mind.

So why get certified? Well for one thing – you’ll be able to add three little letters after your name…(Stephanie Gagnon, CPP – has a nice ring to it doesn’t it?) With the growing number of photographers all over the country it can help to set you apart. Only about 3% of photographers in the USA are certified – that’s a very small number! And that’s not because the test is impossible to pass – it’s because there are so many new photographers with little to no education in the field. To be able to increase that percentage and be one of those who can say that they understand photography and passed their CPP examination and print submission would be a great achievement! It also shows other photographers (especially those who’ve been in the industry for a long while) that you value this craft and that you are committed to growing and improving.

What does it mean for your clients? Well let’s be honest. Not many of your clients are going to know what CPP means. And because they don’t know what it means – the might not know why to value that. But you can share that you’re certified on your site and blog. You can post a blog post and let them know what it means, what you had to do to acquire those three letters.

So what do you have to do. Well there’s a $200 fee to take the CPP examination. This fee gives you the opportunity to take the test as many times as needed within 2 years to pass it. The test is 100 questions and you have to score at least a 70% to pass. The questions cover everything from lighting to lenses, shooting scenarios, composition, design – all the things a professional photographer should know and use to create their clients beautiful, timeless, one of a kind images! once you pass the exam, you then have to submit 15 prints for review. 6 of these images are compulsory, meaning they are specifically set up as to what they want you to shoot and demonstrate in them. The other nine need to accurately reflect what you shoot for your clients.

Once you pass both of these, you will be declared a certified photographer! But it doesn’t end there! You will have to recertify every 3 years by paying a $100 fee and fulfilling 15 education requirements throughout the course of those three years to maintain your title of certification. Why do they do this? To ensure that those who are certified are continuing to educate themselves and grow as individuals and artists!

Pam did a great job sharing all of this information with us. Things she learned to help her pass the test, resources that helped her and things we should think about. It was very insightful and tons of information, which was fantastic! If you would like to look into more information on certification – the PPA is a great source to find everything you might want to know about getting certified and the process. Here’s the link to the CPP page: http://www.ppa.com/cpp/

We also had our monthly print competition. The theme for this month was Center of Interest: the point or points on the image where the maker wants the viewer to stop as they view the image. There can be primary and secondary centers of interest. Occasionally there will be no specific center of interest, when the entire scene collectively serves as the center of interest. Andrea Beltz of AB Photography was this month’s winner with her print entitled “Waiting”

Well I hope you enjoyed this little glimpse into this month’s CILPPA meeting. Next month’s meeting will also be at Millikin University and if all goes according to plan – we should be hearing from Kat Smalley about branding! If you are a photographer or know a photographer who might enjoy growing with us – shoot me an email and we’ll get them set up! Have a wonderful Wednesday!