Award Winning Boston Photographer :: Leah Haydock Photography :: *blush*

I'm blowing my own trumpet today. Parp parp parp parp parp parp paaaaaaaarp!

I'm a proud member of ISPWP. The International Society of Professional Wedding Photographers.

I remember submitting my application for admission a few years ago - it was kind of nervewracking! Most associations/groups/guilds you can simply join by asking and/or paying a membership fee but ISPWP is different. You have to have shot 50+ weddings, submit your portfolio for review, agree to operate under the ISPWP code of contact, have an ISPWP sponsor or four professional references AND you have to be voted in by current members.

Each season, ISPWP runs a photography contest. Members from around the world - winners hail from France, Spain, Russia, Quebec, Brazil and many other countries - submit images for serious judging and then cross their fingers until the results are announced. As I clicked through the winning images for the Spring 2013 contest I was shocked/delighted/honored to have 3 images place.

Here are my winning images:

The Bride & Groom Portrait Category has super fierce competition AND this was one of my very favorite pictures from last year so I was super happy with this one! Amanda and Mike's Boston Harbor Hotel Wedding:

I also had two images place in the "Venue or Location" category. Images come from all over the world - the most stunning and unusual and exotic locations - so I was so proud to have winning images from two iconic Boston wedding venues.
Jessica & Mark's State Room Boston Wedding:

Elizabeth & AJ's Boston Harbor Hotel Wedding (in the blizzard of February 2013 no less!):

And if you'd like to see the first time I placed in the ISPWP awards you can check out this post: Award Winning Boston Photographer

Good news and....good news

Hello! Sergio is that you reading my blog??? A short while ago I got a lovely email from www.weddingwire.com letting me know that I've won a Bride's Choice Award which is rather nice. Here's the official blurb from Wedding Wire:
The WeddingWire Bride's Choice Awards ™ recognizes the top local wedding professionals that demonstrate excellence in quality, service, responsiveness and professionalism. Unlike other awards in which winners are selected by the organization, the WeddingWire Bride's Choice Awards™ are determined by recent reviews and extensive surveys from over 750,000 WeddingWire newlyweds. The 2011 award recipients represent the top five percent of WeddingWire's vendor community, which consists of over 200,000 local wedding professionals throughout the US and Canada


I've been super lucky and I've never had to advertise my wedding photography business, I have lovely clients who tell all of their engaged friends about me and I'm almost completely booked for 2011 (just 2 available dates left in the fall...) and 2012 is looking like it will go the same way - so this kind of award is pretty cool as it's not some kind of paid-for thing (you'd be surprised how many "awards" are).

Wedding Wire is actually a pretty cool resource of reviews and referrals on wedding vendors - in fact, if I've photographed your wedding and you have a few moments to leave a review of me that would be splendid! You can click **here** for the review page. I think if you leave 5 reviews (you can review your venue, stationary, florist, planner, make up, dress store, DJ, band) they send you some kind of gift...

And then the OTHER good news...a while ago the talented writer Christine Lewis contacted me to see if she could use some of my images from weddings I have photographed at Maudslay State Park and Zorvino Vineyard for an article in Merrimack Valley Magazine. I was in Butcher Boy yesterday afternoon and I saw the bridal edition for sales as I stood at the checkout:


I flipped through the useful articles and sure enough, on page 46 are two of my pictures. How fun!

First a cute picture of Corey & Isaiah's feet at their wedding at Maudslay State Park:


And then an image of Tracey & Kyle's wedding rings in Zorvino Vineyard:


Christine sent me a scan of the article which you can just about read but I'd recommend picking up a copy too!


Thanks for checking back after a week of blog silence (this is kind of my summer vacation time as wedding season doesn't really get going until April in New England) - I ended up taking a last minute trip to WPPI in Las Vegas (the most amazing annual Wedding & Portrait Photography Conference). After Mystic6 in CT and the Jerry Ghionis Workshop in CO I was feeling like my brain couldn't take any more education so I decided to mostly explore the tradeshow for some wonderful new products (coming soon...). I also caught up with 7 of the 11 photographers I was in Denver with.

5 photographers who've attended the same workshop discussing posing of hands and arms + a little champagne = this kind of nonsense:

Hello Tess, Kate, Regas and Garrett!

Coming up tomorrow - a spectacular wedding album for you to see and then I have some lovely winter engagement pictures for you next week. Happy Thursday!