The Kentucky News Photographers Association finished up its seminar and contest this past weekend. And like most years, I left feeling revived, optimistic, and humbled. This year I was especially pessimistic about the competition and had let myself be affected by the negativity in the industry. No doubt it has been a rough few years for journalists and Kentucky hasn’t been spared. Whenever I spoke with photographers around the state, the talk was almost always negative and filled with stories of what the news industry has done to hasten their own demise. There is no journalist in this state who felt secure this year and I’m confident it has had an impact on the way we do our jobs. I had assumed that the low moral coupled with the lack of picture-taking passion would translate into a poor showing come contest time. I’ve never been happier to be so wrong.

See for yourself the fantastic photos taken by the professionals and students of Kentucky during 2009 on the knpa.org website. The photos taken by Kentucky’s talented photographers were perhaps some of the best I’ve seen in many years. Congratulations to all the well-deserved winners selected by an equally talented set of judges including Gary Cosby, Jr., Rob Carr, and Jahi Chikwendiu. Charles Bertram is THE MAN and no one will ever convince me otherwise.

And now having had my yearly revival, complete with Brother Jahi’s passionate delivery and philosophical message, I’m going to do my best to stay positive while I work towards the yearly goals I set for myself.

Herald-Leader's Charles Bertram accepts one of his awards from Amy Wallot. Among his awards included the POY and runner-up Sports POY.

WKU student POY Scott McIntyre accepts an award from Amy Wallot.

I just got home from six days of the 2009 Multimedia Immersion and NPPA Convergence held in Las Vegas. It was exhausting, exhilarating, inspirational and humbling.

We coached 45 students from around the country on how to produce multimedia storytelling. We used gear from our sponsors, Canon, Think Tank Photo and Roberts Imaging, and along the way we tried to instruct and inspire the students so they could go home and spread the multimedia goodness to their friends and coworkers.

And we ate a lot of noodles.

At some point, all of the handouts that the coaches provided will be available as downloads on the Multimedia Immersion website. I made up a tip sheet for the 5D Mark II, as more than 15 of the students used that as their only video camera. And on Thursday at the NPPA Convergence, I gave a presentation on Photoblogging geared to the beginners. Both of those can be dowloaded from my blog.

Make sure to check in with the Immersion website to see when the participant’s videos are posted – there is some bad-ass work in there!

20-something iPhone photos stitched together