Today, I would like to share a major milestone in my photographic career. Last Saturday, Oct. 14, I was teaching a workshop with Oliver Klink, an award-winning fine art photographer in his studio in Los Gatos, California. It was an intense day and late that afternoon after the class finished I decided to check my email. One message, in particular, caught my eye right away. The title read "CONGRATULATIONS".
I opened it but the text of the message was not any clearer. So, I replied" Thank you, Susan but for what? After a few minutes, she replies saying that I had won a major award at the 12th Annual Black & White Spider Awards.
I told Oliver and we both rushed to the computer to check the Spider Awards website. To my astonishment, my aloe vera garden image had won 1st place in the Still Life category. WOW, that was pretty intense. So we started to browse the other winning images and found out he had won the 2nd place in the Silhouette category. We were both celebrating but he kept browsing. We found that 6 other photographers that we know had also won awards in the competition. And then, he said: Good lord, you won Photographer of the Year!!!
What ? 😳
And there it was, my image again with the title Photographer of the Year. Unbelivable. At that point I though what a lucky bastard. I almost did not submit that image thinking that it did not have much of a chance. These photography competitions never cease to amaze me. You never know what the jurors are looking for. 😄
The Black & White Spider awards is one of the industry's most important events for black and white photography and this year, jury members included captains of the industry from The Armory Show, New York; Christie's, London; McCann, Singapore; GQ, New York; Hot Docs Film Festival, Toronto; Y&R, Malaysia; Sharon Calahan, Pixar Animation Studios, Emeryville; Bloomsbury Auctions, London; and Donald Schneider Studios, Berlin.
I apologize if this post sounds self-congratulatory. Forgive me, this is such a big deal that I can't help myself. 🤗
Image © Eduardo Fujii
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Eduardo Fujii
Website: https://eduardofujii.photography
Email: eduardo@eduardofujii.photography
Steamit: @sea-otter