Lisa Powers
New Zealand

2nd Place - Merit of Excellence

"Meghan in Fake Fur Coat"

Model wearing a full-length fake fur coat to promote synthetic fur in fashion instead of animal furs

Biography: I was born in the south of France. My heritage is of French/Italian lineage. My family and I moved to New York when I was ten years old. I began learning photography when I quit my day-job in a small advertising agency for a job in a large commercial photo studio. My ambition was to become a professional freelance commercial photographer and I learned by watching the studio photographers shoot in the daytime, then shooting for myself with models at night. I learned more by artistic experimentation than technical correctness since I had no technical knowledge. This was in the film era,...