In a print competition, the print itself should have some say in who wins the top award. At the Professional Photographers of Idaho competition, The Economic Recovery, created by Nick Jones, made it to the finish line for the coveted Sunset Print Award, but it was the print that took it over the top.

Psychology plays a big role in photography, especially portrait photography, as the psychology of the photographer, the subject and the viewer all come into play.

Simple and clean is the philosophy that has been the cornerstone of award-winning veteran photographer Tim Kelly’s success. Kelly’s philosophy is perfectly illustrated with this Sunset Print Award-winner, a portrait of up and coming singer/songwriter musician Billy Wright.

Michael and Tina Timmons are Sunset Print Award regulars, in one way or another. Both are past Sunset Print Award-winners for their outstanding photography, but have also printed award-winning images for other photographers across the country.

This Sunset Print Award-winning photo from the New Hampshire PPA print competition, entitled Firehole River, almost didn’t happen. The photographer, Jeff Dachowski – a former Sunset Print Award winner, decorated photographer and PPA judge – had pneumonia when he captured this scene in Yellowstone National Park at Firehole River.

Master photographer Gary Meek, owner of Gary’s Studio of Photography in Hot Springs, Ark., says that Ansel Adams’ concept of “pre-visualization” is one of the most important aspects of photography. Gary and his wife, Kathryn, also a Master photographer, were traveling through Florence in October of last year when they came upon the scene shown here.

Award-winning prints are subject to any number of objective criteria, such as composition and color balance, but there is often a subtle and subjective emotional element that resonates with the judges, even if they can’t quite put their finger on the story behind that emotional element. For the Sunset Print Award winner at the Professional Photographers Association of Massachusetts (PPAM) convention, Cathy Broderick, her award-winning print, entitled A Slow Decline, had great emotional significance. Broderick, who owns Cathleen Broderick Photography in Whitman, Mass., captured this wilting flower in her studio while her mother was in the hospital with a terminal illness. “I had been fooling around with flowers in the studio before my mother went into the hospital, trying to come up with something apart from my usual portraiture. When she got sick I left the studio and forgot about them,” recalls Broderick. “A few days later I came back to the studio to take care of some details in...

An expert portrait photographer – primarily weddings and seniors – Amy Feick won a Sunset Print Award at the PPA Northeast District competition for an image outside her expertise.

Each year the Antonelli Institute of Graphic Design & Photography holds a huge student photography competition. This year, second-year student Lauren Driscoll walked away with a Sunset Print Award for her lemony-fresh commercial product shot entitled, well, Lemon Fresh.

One of the great things about photography is the Eureka! moment when all the pieces fall into place for the perfect scene. Modern digital photography allows us to manipulate and create that moment in the processing stage, but when it happens naturally, there’s something special about it.