It's official: I passed the Image Submission Review as Part II in the process of becoming a Certified Professional Photographer. Part I consisted of me declaring my candidacy and Part III will entail sitting for a written exam. So, it looks like I will be going to San Antonia in January to take the exam (if I don't go to another test site before then).In the meantime, I will be hitting the books to study for the exam which will cover everything from camera/lens operations to lighting/posing to digital capture/output. Specifically, I will be brushing-up on the Inverse Square Law and Color Theory as well as the history of photography. At this point, you may be asking, Why get certified? After all, I already possess a degree in Commercial Photography.
Unfortunately, anyone can claim to be a professional photographer. And with the state of the current economy, many folks are buying digital cameras with the intention of making a few extra bucks on the weekend. The reality is that more times than not, these weekend worriers leave their clients with little more than lighter wallets.
Less than 8% of all imaging professionals are certified. Compared to any other profession, this number is astonishing. In fact, most professionals of any other occupation cannot even hang out a shingle without first being certified by a governing body of their profession. Further, I, personally, would not want to use someone who wasn't certified.
For these reasons and more, I have made certification a goal of mine. For more info, see Blog Post: It Starts-The CPP Process 9/15/09.
Tammy
