Award Winners

PAPA Aerial Photographer of the Year

Each year, this award is presented to a PAPA member who has demonstrated an outstanding contribution to aerial photography, based on the following criteria:

Continuous excellence in aerial photography
Significant contribution to aerial photography
In the public eye via books, exhibits, lectures, publications or visual presentations in other forms
Made a single outstanding achievement
Long term service to the association or its members
Minimum of 3 years PAPA membership

The award, a commemorative piece in etched crystal, is presented at the PAPA International Annual Convention. The first award was bestowed in 2006.The award is sponsored by Epson and Logix of Michigan, sellers of Epson and other professional printers & printing supplies.

2011 Aerial Photographer of the Year: Yvonne Sanderson

Yvonne Sanderson, PAPA Aerial Photographer of the Year 2011

Yvonne Sanderson with her PAPA Aerial Photographer of the Year 2011 award

PAPA is pleased to announce that Yvonne Sanderson was selected as the 2011 Epson Aerial Photographer of the Year. The announcement and award was made at the Las Vegas PAPA Conference Awards Banquet March 12, 2011. With her husband, Mark, Yvonne has built a Focal Plane Photography into successful business in Cleveland, Ohio. She works diligently to keep her company name and photography in the public eye with displays at the Cleveland Museum of Art and at the Cleveland Hts, University Hts, Public library. She has also exhibited at Mayfield Village Civic Center, the Fairmount Center for the Arts, Notre Dame College of Ohio and several of their pieces are in The Progressive Corp. Art Collection and in the Cleveland Bicentennial Book.

She was recently interviewed for the television show, Applause, which aired on the local PBS station and she has been made front page news in the Cleveland Sun Newspaper in Feb 2009 and April 2010.

Yvonne and Mark have both been members of PAPA since 1994. Yvonne earned her Master Award in 2009.

Press articles featuring Yvonne and her photography

Mark and Yvonne Sanderson

Previous Recipients of the EPSON Aerial Photographer of the Year

2010: Mark Holtzman of West Coast Aerial Photography in Los Angeles, California
2009: Yves Tremblay, of PhotoHelico in Quebec, Canada
2008: Lee Ross, of Rosspilot in New York
2007: Herb Lingl, of Aerial Archives in San Francisco
2006: Jim Wark, of AirPhoto in Colorado