We are extremely excited and proud to announce that Michael has won the Best Wedding Portrait of 2011 in the National Image Competition of the Professional Photographers of Canada!

And here is the multi-award winning image of Stephanie and Branden, entitled ‘Hot Water’:

I know many of you have seen this image before, it also won an award from Bride.ca, and is in one of our sample albums in the studio.

Here is Michael accepting his award at the convention in Banff.

This trophy means that we have officially started a ‘collection’ – it has a special place next to the award he won last year for best Wedding Photojournalistic Portrait.

In addition to this amazing award, Michael’s other images did very well in the competition. Here is an explanation of how the competitions work:

There are three levels of placement: Accepted, Merit, and Excellence. The vast majority of images that people submit are not accepted. Some are accepted, few are merit, and a handful of images are judged excellent each year. Each photographer is allowed to enter up to 4 images in different categories and an album.

Here is a summary of how each image fared at the national and provincial level this year.

‘Hot Water’ received a score of Accepted at the provincial level, Merit at the national level, Best in Class for Wedding Portrait, and also received the honour of being selected for the National Loan Collection.

‘Oy Vey!’ received a score of Accepted at the national level.

‘Looking In’ received a score of Merit at the national level. The wedding album from Chelsea & Alistair’s wedding also received a score of Accepted at both the provincial and national level.

We can’t wait to see what our 2011 wedding season holds!