The much anticipated year of 2021 is about to begin. I'm sure everyone is ready to close the door on this crazy Covid year and move forward into a hopeful future.  

      Before describing the many events that are planned for our PPGH 2021 year, let's take a moment to congratulate ourselves on the many new things that we have learned in the year 2020. Let's realize that because we are photographers, we are flexible and have learned to adapt to changing situations. After all, how many times did you get to a session and the customer made a change or that silly trigger wasn't working? So how did we adapt to all these changes of social distancing? 

   We learned how to 'zoom'. Under the fabulous leadership of our Covid president , Kathy Kinser, and our 2020 board, we were able to continue with our monthly educational speakers.  During our zoom meetings, we consoled, congratulated, inspired and learned together. On a separate night of each month, our web master, Duane Blocker helped us continue with our print competition. Our members tuned in to hear their critiques and to perfect their images. Consequently, we had many members awarded merits and loans in the International Print Competition (IPC). And here are our winners:

•  Frances Aileen Harding
  
• Teri Whittaker
  
• Karen Butts
• Armando Chacon
• Michael Reiland
• Maryanne Keeling
• Cornell McGhee
• Sabrina Casas
• Tara Flannery

You can see all of their images on 'The International Photographic Competition Gallery' of the PPA.com web site. 

And now let's look at the upcoming events for the first quarter of 2021. We have so much to look forward to.

•    The registration for Texas School is Jan 4 at 11:00 pm.
  
•    Imaging USA will be presented virtually beginning with Pre-con classes on Jan. 14
  
•   Our January 12th speaker, Nick Tsakaris will give us a virtual presentation on       Lightroom and the updates to Photoshop 2021. Please note, we'll be compensating our Zoom speakers, so it will be necessary to charge our members $10 for access to Zoom presentations. $15 for non-members
•    We have a head shot social planned at the studio of Leslie Cervantez on February 21. 
  

       As we click and snap our way into 2021, here's to hoping we have a little normalcy into our lives and need only one planner for the entire year.  Let's forget having to photograph  our clients from a distance, on their porches, and wrapped in hot masks. Let's hope that we can once again see each other's faces in person, and visit our client's in the intimacy of their homes and work spaces. I'm looking forward to seeing our old members, and meeting new members as soon as possible. and , finally let's make 2021 a year of rebirth to our 71 year old organization!

"Hope," the poet Emily Dickinson wrote, "is the thing with feathers."

Written by , Laura Mansur Guerra