Grand Rapids Wedding Photography

Grandville, MI – February 5, 2011 – WeddingWire, the nation’s leading wedding technology company, is thrilled to announce Kari Douma Photography has been selected to receive the prestigious annual WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Awards™ 2011 for Photography!

Recognition for the Bride’s Choice Awards™ 2011 is determined by recent reviews and extensive surveys from over 750,000 WeddingWire newlyweds. Our past clients are among those that shared their experiences on WeddingWire, the largest wedding review site in the nation. 

Kari Douma Photography stands among the top five percent of wedding professionals in the WeddingWire community, representing quality and service excellence within the wedding industry. Awards were given to the top wedding professionals across 20 service categories, from wedding venues to wedding photographers, and were based on the overall professional achievements throughout the past year. 

“WeddingWire is honored to celebrate the success of the top-rated wedding professionals within the WeddingWire community,” said Timothy Chi, WeddingWire’s Chief Executive Officer. “With the annual Bride’s Choice Awards™ program, WeddingWire has the unique opportunity to recognize the best wedding professionals across the US and Canada. We applaud Kari Douma Photography for their professionalism and dedication to enhancing the wedding planning experience last year.” 

We are happy to announce that Kari Douma Photography is among the very best Photographers within the WeddingWire Network, which includes leading wedding planning sites WeddingWire, Martha Stewart Weddings, Project Wedding and Weddingbee. We would like to thank our past clients for nominating us to receive the Bride’s Choice Awards™ 2011. 

For more information, please visit our WeddingWire Storefront today at www.karidoumaphotography.com.

For more information on the Bride’s Choice Awards™ 2011, please visit www.WeddingWire.com.

On Monday night we had our annual awards banquet and Christmas party with the Professional Photographers of Western Michigan.  Our banquet was at Red’s on the River, and we had a GREAT time!  I hadn’t been there before, and it was wonderful!  But, the fun part of the evening was the awards!  Our Studio Manager  and associate photographer Jayne was awarded one of the top 10 photographers in West Michigan, and I was awarded one of the top 5 photographers in West Michigan!  I was also recognized for passing my CPP exam.

I just realized that I never made a post here about this!  I posted it on Facebook, but not on my blog…

I am now a Certified Professional Photographer with the Professional Photographers of America.  In the United States, you do not have to be certified to be a professional photographer, so most photographers are not certified.  In fact, at the begining of the year, there were only approximately 1000 certified Photographers in the United States. I started studying for the test last May (besides my last 8 years of photography experience!)  I will have to admit, it was a lot harder than I anticipated.  You see, since I am self taught, I know what I do.  I know how to get the results that I want.  When I started studying in May, I started studying a lot of things that I did not use in my business, but things I had to know to become certified.  I had to study things like the internal parts of a camera, the film process and emulsion layers, the scientific way the light creates an image, view cameras (the old fashioned cameras that you put your head under a cloth), filters (filters are not used as much now with photoshop)… etc…. you get the idea.

There are two parts to the exam.  There is a written test, and an image submission.  I submitted my portfolio last August.  5 Judges review your portfolio, and they all have to agree to pass it.  In September I received the letter that my images passed the review.  Then, the first week of October, I took the written exam.  It was hard, and I was nervous.  2 weeks later, I received a letter in the mail, congratulating me on passing my written portion of the exam!  So, now I am Kari Douma, C.P.P.

I looked on the Certified Professional Website, and I am only one of 6 photographers in the Grand Rapids area that is listed as a Certified Professional Photographer.  I want to say thank you to my clients for trusting your cherished memories with me!

Thank you,

Kari Douma, C.P.P.

I LOVE print competition! I usually am not a competitive person by nature, but for some reason print competition is different. I am not competitive in the way that I want to beat everyone else, but rather a personal goal… I want to do well. I love to watch print competition, and hear what the judges say about the prints. I feel it has really helped me grow as a photographer. I have been entering print competition for the last 4 years. Again this year I entered the International Print Competition from Professional Photographer of America. Yesterday they published the results of the competition. I had 3 (out of 4 that I entered) prints that were accepted (merited) and one that was accepted into the Loan Collection! I was THRILLED with the results! They haven’t released all the statistics yet of how many prints were entered and accepted… but last year there were over 4300 prints entered. about 30% were accepted, with the top 12% making it to the loan collection. They will be on display in January next year at the Imaging USA convention in San Antonio TX. Here are the two of mine that were accepted (merited)…

I Look To The Hills

Dog Tired

And this is the one that was accepted into the Loan Collection!

Falling For You