Gazing at photographer Dennis Hammon‘s image “Safe Harbor,” it’s easy to slip into a daydream of an early morning by the lake, the water still, the ducks circling together … and feel a sense of calm.

Photographer Ben Shirk isn’t afraid of a challenge. In fact, when considering what to shoot for this year’s print competitions, a friend dared him to created an award-winning photograph in-camera, rather than relying on his advanced Photoshop skills for creative editing.

It’s not hard to tell where master photographer Kelly Schulze’s heart resides … she signs off email correspondence with a “Peace, Purrs, and Tail Wags,” and she owns Mountain Dog Photography in Monkton, Vermont. Yes, she loves all things furry or scaly, and has dedicated her business to capturing their personalities in portraits. Case in point: Ivory, the albino rabbit she photographed at the Humane Society of Chittenden County, where she has volunteered her photography skills for several years. Ivory’s red eyes and bright pink skin were shot against a blue background, which Schulze says may have seemed “creepy” to some viewers. At a friend’s suggestion, she changed the image to black-and-white and suddenly had an award winner on her hands. She won the Sunset Print Award at the Vermont Professional Photographers competition for this image, titled Hare Apparent. “I’ve always been into animals, and I started photography as a kid,” she says. “After college, I figured out how to put...

You may not think that an accounting, finance and human resources professional would be inclined to turn out gorgeous photography like the winning image, WaterCourse, pictured at left. But maybe you haven’t met photographer Jamie Steeno yet.

Most people take one look at stormy, rainy skies and wouldn’t think twice about spending the day at the beach. However, photographer, Gareth Rockliffe, begs to differ. He loves stormy days at the beach. In fact, he prefers them.

“Breathtaking” is a fitting description for the image “City by the Sea” by Kathryn Meek, a photographer and winner of the Sunset Print Award at the APPA competition in Arkansas.

Edward and Robert Zemba, brothers and owners ofRobert Charles Photographyin East Longmeadow, Mass., know what bullying looks like. They both saw it firsthand growing up. Now, with children of their own and many high school senior clients who visit their studio, they felt compelled to partner with those students to launch the anti-bullying campaign,UNIFY, Unique iNdividuals Inspiring Future Youth.

The Center on Contemporary Art’s opening reception for “Change-Seed: Contemporary Art from Hong Kong and Beyond.” Photo credit: Annie Lukin

Self-taught Indianapolis-based bag designer Anita Hopper specializes in upcycling outdated leather apparel into gorgeous, one-of-a-kind handbags, totes and clutches. A couple of years ago, she got the idea of embellishing the leather further … with her photographer son’s images.

Sometimes the most dramatic photographs can be made in the blink of an eye. When North Carolina portrait, landscape and architectural photographer Gordon Kreplin toured a local Parade of Homes event, he set up a few lights and took one shot while the hallway was clear. That one shot, named “Upstairs Downstairs,” won Kreplin the 2015 Virginia Professional Photographers Association‘s print competition. “I probably shot 15 houses that day, and this was the last one,” Kreplin says. “I loved the composition and entry into the rooms as well as the architectural lines.” To evolve the photo from a straight-forward architectural shot to something a bit more moody, he created a faux high-dynamic range (HDR) in Photoshop. He printed the image on Sunset Fibre Elite, available from LexJet, and mounted it on a 16-x-20-inch black gator board. “I don’t typically finish the print at all by putting a lacquer on it,” he says. “It can make it look milky in the light and it dulls the blacks.” A concert...