Friday night was the closing event for the UPAA Symposium this year. We had a wonderful dinner at Maggiano's Little Italy. I won a door prize and got a huge rolling light case that was given by Calumet Photo . All of the print and publications awards were given and Scott Galvin was the Photographer of the Year.
Fred Sisson from Nikon showed the slides of the Nikon shootout and I won. He was holding a Nikon Coolpix 5000 and I started toward the front he told me to have a seat and he started talking about the womens program and how next year the spouses program needed to have its own contest. Fred went on about some of the photos he had seen from Jill Carpenter and he called her up to receive the Coolpix camera. He then reaches under a table and pulls out a Nikon D200 for me. I was stunned. I thought that the ps camera would have been awesome and I was secretly hoping for a D40X or maybe even a D80, The D200 is a super awesome camera and I am looking forward to putting it to work. Needless to say I enjoyed the Friday night banquet. The entire week was wonderful and I really enjoyed meeting some new people and seeing my old friends. Next year the Symposium will be hosted by Jeff Etheridge at Alburn.
