Sedona Vista Fine Art Photography

The Arizona Professional Photographers Association had their annual convention in Phoenix and Bob Coates (that’s me!) was named top photographer in the print competition. I thought I had a pretty good print case but it was amazing how well it did. I’ll list the awards  each image received under the images. As a quick recap the print case received Photographer of the Year, First and Second place in the Masters Commercial and Illustrative categories, Arizona Top Ten, the ASP Award and Three prestigious Kodak Gallery Awards. I’m really quite humbled yet excited by the experience. I hope I can inspire others to compete in print competition as it has really helped me to get my photography where it is today and hopefully to continue learning and improving as time goes on. I’ll be getting some of these prints posted on sedonavista.com in the very near future. If you don’t see it on the web site and need to get hold of a print faster give me a call or shoot me an email and we’ll get it started for you.

'Taking Flight' Earned first Place in the Masters Illustrative Category, Kodak Gallery Award, American Society of Photographers Award

'Endurinig Comfort' Earned Second Place in the Masters Illustrative Category, a Kodak Gallery Award and a Judges Choice Award

'Fast Food' Earned Second Place in the Masters Commercial category and a Kodak Gallery Award

Taking flight was captured in San Carlos, Mexico while I was down there on a shoot for a friends rental property. It is a composite of 8 individual images of a pelican taking off. I won’t say it took a while to capture the original images (OK maybe it did) I’d look for a bird I thought was going to take off and another one would. Or if I selected the right bird it wouldn’t fly straight across my field of view. After finally getting the images captured I spent a bit of time putting the images together in Photoshop. If you are interested in this priint you want to have a long space available like over a couch. Print size on this image can be from 5×24 to 17×80 inches.

The ‘Enduring Comfort’ Image you can find about in posts lower down the blog…

‘Fast Food’ was created in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand japaneese restaurant Shibuya where my wife and I had a couple of fabulous meals during the Wedding and Portrait Photographers convention this past March.

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The press is doing a good job in getting out the word on the Enduring Comfort image which is raising funds for Meals on Wheels at the Sedona Community Center. I’ll be talking about it more in another post but the image won second place in the Masters Illustrative Category at the Arizona Professional Photographers Association convention this past weekend. It also received the prestigious Kodak Galley Award. It is moving forward in competition to Professional Photographers of America International Print Competition this June. If it does well it will be displayed at the National convention to held in Nashville… But I digress. Here are the two articles. One appeared in the Sedona Verde Valley Times and the other in the Scene put out by the Sedona Red Rock News. Both tell the story of the creation of Enduring Comfort and the quest to raise money for the Meals on Wheels program in honor of my dad Joseph Coates… Click here to download a full size PDF of the articles Sedona Scene or Sedona Verde Valley Times. If you would like to order a print click here

Article about Enduring Comfort from the Scene insert Sedona Red Rock News

Enduring Comfort Press Release Sedona Verde Valley Times

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Went to visit with my wife’s parents this past week. They live in a beautiful spot with marsh surrounding their property making it a great place to shoot wildlife… Mostly birds. I’ve been creating their Christmas card for the last few years using images captured in their “front yard.” Had two nasty days of a northeaster with rain and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to capture any new images. I was shooting in between showers and was able to get these geese and the scene. The overcast acted like a giant soft-box allowing me to capture all the detail with no harsh shadows. I combined three images to create the base for this watercolor art piece. It will grace the Baker’s xmas card but will also be available as a watercolor print. This will be printed on Hahnemuhle Fine Art Photo Rag Pearl paper up to a 17 X 22 inch print. I’d love to hear your feedback.

Geese on the Marsh Fine Art Image

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