Earlier this year I entered a photography competition for the first time. It is in a magazine called Communication Arts, and this is their 51st annual photography competition. The magazine, often seen lying around in studios, is heralded as the most influential publication for art directors and creative directors and has world-wide distribution.
I was incredibly excited and honored when I got the email a few weeks back announcing that I was selected as one of the winners in the unpublished category of the 2010 competition. A copy of the magazine containing my winning image arrived at my house while I was at work in the studio so my entire family got to see it before I did 
I asked my daughter, who had just returned from her first gig as a shooter at a wedding to take a shot of me with the magazine.
My photograph was printed on page 192 of their just released, July / August issue, and it was selected along with the other winners out of a total 13,000 photographs from 6,075 entries. The editorial staff at Communication Arts citing the full impact of the recession, observed a significant drop in entries to this year’s Photography Annual, which in the past, has had as many as 40,000 photographs submitted from all over the world.
My winning photograph was entitled “Fragile – An essay to portray a vulnerable soul”. The model in this photograph is a wonderful lady from Senegal, who was studying in College Station at the time I had the opportunity to work with her.
The shot comes from a collection of beauty & fashion work I shoot under the studio name Hananexposures. This work can be seen on my websitewww.hananexposures.com
