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Athena Modeling Photography and Networking Event Series
Tampa Shootouts
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ABOUT TAMPA SHOOTOUTS
Our history, mission statement, and inspiration.

What led to Tampa Shootouts was a need in the Tampa Bay photography and modeling industries for a professional, ethical modeling photography event; a shootout event where professionals could be proud of participating in, and where they could network.
The official poster for the first Tampa Shootouts event!Photographer C. A. Passinault, who owns Aurora PhotoArts Tampa Photography and Design, founded his company in the summer of 1994, and spent years experimenting with photography and events. In 1998, as his web design aspirations took off, his photography work increased, as he needed photographs for his web sites. By 2000, Passinault became a professional photographer, and his company, Aurora PhotoArts, switched from supporting his other business work to offering photography services as a business.
Passinault had been doing photography events of his own since 1999, getting with models and photographers and having fun at group photography sessions on location. After he turned pro in 2000, Passinault continued doing photography shootout events with groups of models.
In 2003, Passinault began noticing that all was not well with the Tampa photography and modeling markets. He began looking at what others were doing. He was not impressed, or pleased.
He began looking at shootout events, too, and was not happy by what he discovered. One series of shootout events in the Tampa Bay market were nothing but glamour modeling photography seminars and workshops, which were high risk work that no aspiring photographer or model had any business doing. Although they were organized well, the $500.00 photography workshops didn’t do much for the careers of any of the participants, and the models and photographers who participated often came back with work which hurt the marketability of their careers.
Another series of photography shootout events were done by a crass, exploitive model and photographer who did high-risk photography sessions at a clothing-optional resort. Although popular with a certain market, little was accomplished in the careers of any who were involved.
Obviously, new standards were needed in the Tampa photography and modeling market when it came to shootouts.
Passinault began developing his ethical, professional alternative to Tampa shootout events in 2005, and, as he worked his business, he tinkered with the concept. How could he make the shootout events compatible with his career as a professional photographer and talent expert? Passinault’s main business was modeling portfolios and talent headshots, so a shootout event series, which would focus on modeling photography, was inevitable. The key was eliminating conflicts, providing a mainstream event format which was low-risk and career safe, and also being able to provide an alternative to what the others were doing. That last part, proving an alternative to the high-risk markets that the other shootouts were servicing, was in itself a conflict with the mainstream nature of the shootouts that he wanted to do, and Passinault had to figure out a way to be able to do both. The work took years, and, as Passinault worked out the details, his shootout event was on hold.
In May 2011, Passinault found out about a modeling photography shootout event in the Tampa Bay area, and was curious about how legitimate it was. Satisfied that it was a legitimate event, he was invited to attend by the organizer. Passinault attended, and quickly discovered that he had been purposely misled by the organizer. Although he did not go with the intention of researching the event and did not immediately plan on starting his shootout event, this incident proved to be motivating. A professional, ethical shootout event was needed in the Tampa Bay market, and it had to set the standard for all others to follow. Passinault immediately wrote two articles addressing the shady shootout event on Tampa Bay Modeling, and then authorized a massive amount of resources toward his own shootout events, now slated to begin in the fall of 2011. Passinault announced his own shootouts in July, 2011. Passinault also met a professional photographer who was a photography instructor, and who wanted to do workshops. Passinault immediately began looking at ways to infuse workshops into the shootout concepts.
By August 2011, work on the Shootouts events and formats was in full swing, and Passinault acquired TampaShootouts.Com. He added early content to a site which had not officially launched, and by late August, it already dominated search results for shootouts and photography events in the Tampa Bay area. Passinault also started social media support infrastructure for the upcoming events and the TampaShootouts.Com web site.
With the first shootout event slated for late September, Passinault worked hard on details, including the web site, support tools, and branding. He began promoting the upcoming events. The first shootout event was set for September 25, 2011. Although Passinault envisioned a wide range of shootout events to be promoted, marketed, and covered on the TampaShootouts.Com site, tackling markets from mainstream to high-risk, the main shootout events were to be frequent, monthly shootouts for models, photographers, and other industry professionals. Since professionals were not in the market for workshops or portfolios, it was decided to use the main shootout events as working auditions to evaluate the professionals who participated for subcontracted jobs in the workshop events. Because those events would be used for evaluating other professionals, the main shootouts were slated to be offered free of charge, and Passinault came up with ways of keeping overhead low so that the shootouts could be offered free of charge. The details were coming together.
Work progressed. In September, 2011, the main shootout event branding was finalized. The monthly shootout events became the Athena Modeling Photography and Networking Event Series, and it further benefitted from using a few concepts that Passinault had already developed for his monthly film festival series, the Tampa Film Showcase monthly film festival and professional networking event series, which was still a long way off, as it was waiting on Passinault’s independent film efforts.
Which brings us to the present, as this story is still unfolding, and will unfold here as time goes on, and many of you witness progress being made first-hand.
Tampa Shootouts. The Athena Modeling Photography and Networking Event Series. The new standard in photography events!

PUBLISHED 09/23/11

UPDATED 11/18/11

 

DISCLAIMER - TERMS OF USE - MINUTES - CREDITS - SPECIAL THANKS

Athena Modeling Photography and Networking Event Series

Beacon Modeling Photography Shootouts

Allure Sexy Photography Shootouts

Tampa Shootouts on social media; Follow us, friend us, like us, and subscribe to us on: Twitter - Facebook - Youtube

an event series by

Tampa Bay Photography Society - Tampa Bay Modeling - Aurora PhotoArts - Frontier Event Planning - Frontier Stage Productions

in association with

Modeling and talent expert and photographer C. A. Passinault, Aurora PhotoArts Tampa Photography and Design, and director of Tampa Bay Modeling. C. A. Passinault has been the professional behind the modeling careers of several top models in the Tampa Bay market, and has been Tampa Bay's original, and best, model maker since 2000. C. A. Passinault is also an event planner, and owns all of the organizations, web sites, and companies supporting his Tampa Shootouts series.

Pioneer Class web site by Aurora PhotoArts, a Passinault.Com company. Pioneer Class 0002, Commissioned 092311.1344hrs.

Webmaster and Pioneer Class web site designer C. A. Passinault.

ONLINE 09/23/11

UPDATED 09/15/12 - 01/07/23/0059

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