Winning at the OC Fair!

Creative Photo Academy students & educators and the PAUL’S PHOTO customers ROCKED the Photo Competition at the Orange County Fair in 2025.  CONGRATULATIONS to all of you who entered, were accepted and earned Ribbons. As a Community we’re all proud and excited by the amazing work produced by our friends and colleagues. Jane said “Thanks Mark and my CPA friends! It’s easy to see that we learn a lot in the classes, walks, adventures and from the community. We support and nurture each other, and it shows.”

The Orange County Fair hosts one of the country’s largest and most prestigious photo competitions annually. This year over 6000 photos were entered in a number of categories (black & white and color, digital and analog, travel, people, animals, plants, machinery). ~400 photos were selected for display at the Fair.

The CPA and Paul's Photo Community had over 150 photos accepted and displayed. 59 of those awesome photos were recognized with ribbons including BEST of SHOW, three BLACK RIBBONS Division Winners and twenty-two BLUE RIBBONS- First Place! Your effort in class and in the field is paying off. Make sure you get to the Fair and have a look at the photos.

Visit the Orange County Fair now thru August 17th. It’s a great day of photography and some good old-fashioned fun. Yes, there are carnival rides, midway games, fried fair food, farm animals and pig races. People watching and street photography are stupendous. The best time for photography at the Fair is the late afternoon into evening. Don’t forget to stop into the Visual Arts Pavilion (it’s Air Conditioned) and see the photos from the photo competition.  



These winning photos will be on display In-Store at Paul's Photo in September 2025!

OC Fair info:  https://ocfair.com/

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DIVISION WINNER

Matt MacMillan

"Impressionist's Koi"

I took this photo as part of my "Monet Effect" portfolio for CPA Advanced Projects class last year. This particular image did not fit in with the overall series, but stood out as a personal favorite. The great impressionist painters always incorporated bright colors and shimmering movement in their art and I wanted to achieve the same effect by using intentional camera movement. Taken at the Earl Burns Miller Japanese Garden at California State University, Long Beach.

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BEST OF SHOW & DIVISION WINNER

Bruce Fisher

"Triangular Artistry"

The dancer was photographed in the studio using a Strobe combined with constant lights (gelled). She was covered in flour to create the atmospheric feeling.

The color image was converted to black and white in Silver Efex Pro.