Editor's Choice Award Winner for 2012 from Two Bright Lights!!

All of our hard work is paying off! We are so excited to receive the 2012 Editor's Choice Awards from Two Bright Lights!

So, as exciting this is for us you're probably wondering what is two bright lights?!

 Two bright lights is a  website that allows us to share your amazingly special day, the hard work you put into it, the amazing creativity and our photos with the world. There are tons of amazing blogs and magazines that brides-to-be will look at to get inspiration and Two Bright Lights let's us easily get our photos to them.

Many of the editors are super picky, so when we are selected as an editors choice it means they have chosen our weddings consistently over hundreds of others to be featured!

The award is given in recognition of the those whose number of published features in 2011 placed them among the top 5% of all Two Bright Lights members. Winners were published across many of the most respected lifestyle, wedding and other print and digital publications in the United States and worldwide.

We are honored to be part of this group of talented photographers and creative professionals.

We wouldn't have anything to submit if it wasn't for our amazing clients and their weddings so THANK YOU!! Thank you for letting us document your special days and be a part of your lives.

Here is where you can find our work featured!

We are receiving a Bride’s Choice Award!

You all are so awesome! Because of your reviews and survey results we are receiving a Bride's Choice Award from WeddingWire. Thank you so much!

We are so passionate about making beautiful and different images to document your wedding day. This let's us know that you care about what we do. Thank you!

You can read the full press release below.



ORLANDO, FL – Tuesday, January 19, 2010 - WeddingWire, the nation’s leading wedding technology company, just announced Pilster Photography has been selected to receive the WeddingWire 2010 Bride’s Choice Awards™ for photography!

The annual Bride’s Choice Awards recognizes and celebrates excellence in quality and service within the wedding industry, as determined by recent reviews and extensive surveys from over 500,000 newlyweds.

Pilster Photograpphy is among the top five percent of all vendors in the WeddingWire community, which includes over 100,000 wedding professionals across the US and Canada. Awards were given to winners across 19 different service categories, from wedding venues to wedding photographers.

“We are excited to recognize and honor the success of the top wedding professionals within the WeddingWire Community” said Timothy Chi, WeddingWire’s Chief Executive Officer. “The annual Bride’s Choice Awards program has given us the unique opportunity to highlight the best wedding professionals in each region as reviewed by brides and grooms who have utilized their services in the past year.”

We are happy to announce that Pilster Photography is among the very best wedding photographers within the WeddingWire Network, which includes WeddingWire and Martha Stewart Weddings. We would like to thank our past newlyweds for nominating us for the 2010 Bride’s Choice Awards.

For more information, please visit our WeddingWire Storefront today at http://www.weddingwire.com/biz/pilster-photography-deland/ef3b79191708e3af.html.

About WeddingWire, Inc.
WeddingWire is the only online wedding planning resource designed to empower both engaged couples and wedding vendors. WeddingWire enables engaged couples to search, compare and book over 100,000 reviewed wedding vendors nationwide, from wedding photographers to wedding cakes. WeddingWire also offers an online community and a suite of cutting-edge planning tools, including wedding websites and wedding checklists, all at no charge. For wedding vendors, WeddingWire provides free online management tools creating the only market opportunity that gives businesses control over their clients, reviews, leads and performance. In addition, WeddingWire has partnered with Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc. (NYSE: MSO) to provide its network of local vendors and online wedding-planning tools in the Weddings section of www.MarthaStewartWeddings.com. For additional information, please visit www.WeddingWire.com.

About Pilster Photography, LLC.
Using pictorial photojournalism, documentary photos composed with a creative style, Pilster Photography strives to take photos outside of the box. Their work has been described as "Weird but cool." Pilster Photography's owner and lead storyteller Chad Pilster has been doing professional photography since 1994. After graduating with a degree in photojournalism from San Jose State University he was an award winning photojournalist for six years at a large circulation newspaper. Pilster Photography has been photographing weddings since 2006. Pilster Photography also does editorial, commercial and portrait assignments. They are destination photographers available to go anywhere in the universe. For more information visit http://www.pilsterphotography.net.

3rd Place in Bella Pictures Monthly Photo Contest

I just picked up 3rd place for March, in the photojournalism category, for Bella Pictures (http://www.bellapictures.com) internal monthly photo contest

b-cleaning - PDNs Top Knots Wedding Photo Contest

In my mind this is one of the best wedding photographer contests. I have watched this contest for a long time before I even decided to step into wedding photography full-time. (Oh and this years deadline is December 1st!)

http://www.topknotscontest.com/

moved to "Photo Contests"

Contest Season is Upon us!

The Atlanta Photojournalism contest deadline is in a few days. Usually this means it's time to start digging through everything you shot in the past year, pull out your best, stick it on a disk and drop it in the mail. This is the first major-national-photojournalism-contest of the year.

By sorting through your images in November, when January comes around (And about 5 more MAJOR photojournalism contests), it should be a snap to get your images together.

Although this year most of my images are already together. I have been going through all of my best work over and over, within the past few months, as I've been building my website and trying to market myself. Looking through my old stuff has become nostalgic.

It reminds me how much I enjoyed shooting for a newspaper. It was relaxing and I was very happy. It was really like losing a part of me. When I look back on the images that I made while I was there, it brings up memories of those good times. I don't think newspapers are the same anymore, and after talking to former colleagues the happy times at newspapers may be over (At least in the short term.)

Life right now is chaotic and stressful. I am scrounging for assignments, developing a brand for my company and marketing myself. I am starting a brand new company from almost nothing except my experience. I went from a place where it felt like everyone knew my name, to a place where I am just another bright star among trillions. I feel like I moved from one universe to another and I need to find a way to shine brighter than the rest so I'm noticed again.

My work has taken over my life in the past few weeks and even getting out the door to find time to run has been difficult.

Things are starting to slowly turn. This next week will be the second week, since I left the newspaper, that I have enough work to survive financially. I hope to see this continue. I hope to get back to some normalacy.

When next years contests roll around it may be a new experience for me. My focus in photography will probably shift away from the contests that might get me noticed by others at the newspapers. I need to find a whole new set of places to display my work to my peers and have them judge it.

Some will argue that contests mean nothing, but that is a discussion for another day. I am going to leave you with my entry to the Atlanta Contest.