I posted last week that my image had received Honours in the Photographic Society of New Zealand Central Regional Salon. I also told you that I had been present when the images were judged so I knew that the final decision of who won the cup had been between my image and a black & white portrait.
I was both pleased with the honours but also disappointed that it had not won. Today I was reading through the October issue of f11 Magazine when I spotted the image that had beaten mine. It was one submitted to the 2016 Iris Awards where it received Gold and went on to earn its creator the title of 2016 Classic Portrait Photographer of the year.
I guess that if you are going to be beaten, then being beaten by the best in the country is not all that bad.
I have had to keep things under wraps for a couple of weeks, but my reflections image with Jason, scored Honours in the Open Category of the Central Regional Salon of PSNZ. The central region is essentially the lower half of the North Island.
I was present at the judging so it was great to see the reception the print got. It fought it out with another image to be named the overall winner of the category, but ended up coming second. This is still a very pleasing result.
I also entered a print of Wilf into the Salon which received an “accepted” which means that it will be displayed over the weekend at the conference.
My image of Jason and the mirrors continues to have success. This time I entered it into the Canon Online competition, which is a digital competition run every two months by the Photographic Society of New Zealand.
I have entered images into it previously over the last three years without any success, but this time I found out that the photo had made the top ten in the round coming 8th.
The judge made the following comments on it.
“This is a busy image but I kept coming back to it and seeing more interest in the picture. Each mirror helps create the full image of the man. The post work is very good. Having the one mirror without a face just adds a bit more interest.”
What is quite amusing is that the mirror without the reflection was actually a mistake.
The image is also entered as a print in the Central Regional Salon with the results announced in a couple of weeks time. Will keep you posted.
Last night we had the results of the third round of the Hutt Camera’ club 2016 ladder competition. This time I had four images in for consideration. There were two digital images, that had been entered specifically to compete for the overall title. In addition I submitted two print images, that I am considering to be part of my submission early next year for Photographic Society of New Zealand honours. The plan was simply to get feedback from the judge.
I was blown away with the results. Both print images were awarded honours, as was one of the digital images. The other scored a merit (which is the grade below honours) so that was pleasing as well.
Against the cold – HonoursThe Old Map – HonoursThe old Accordion player – MeritWilf – Honours.
My image of Wilf is one that proves you don’t need a fancy camera to get the image. This was shot on a small and relative cheap Fuji mirrorless.
Each year the six photographic clubs in the Wellington area have a print competition. The host club sets 10 topics and each club submits a single image. I have entered images for selection in most years, and have normally had at least one selected by the Hutt Camera Club. This year was no different and I submitted images in two categories.
The judging was held last night and I was thrilled when my entry in the “reflections” category won, with the judge raving about the image.
Afterwards the images attracted a lot of attention and I received a lot of questions about how it had been produced.
When I had seen the category “reflections” I knew that I wanted to create something quite different. A very similar topic was used in 2011 and that time I used a mirror as well. (you can read about that one on this link).
Fortunately just down the road from work is an unusual shop selling a wide of mirrors. It is set out more like an old curiosity shop, and so i knew that it would make a great location. The shop describes itself as a gentleman’s destination shop so I knew that I wanted a particular look for the person. Fortunately I knew that Wellington wedding photographer Jason Naylor fitted that bill, and he agreed to take part.
We had to wait a couple of months to get a time that was not so chaotic for him and the shop owner. We will given full run of the shop after it closed to the public. My daughter assisted with helping set up the mirrors.
The image was lit with a single strobe placed immediately in front of Jason firing into my 7 foot parabolic umbrella. A Lumecube was placed on a light stand just behind him (camera left) to add a little separation.
The shot as presented is pretty much straight out of camera. Photoshop was used to set the tone of the image along with a little dodging. The fifth mirror was a little bit of a mistake however I quite like how it adds a little bit to the image.
Last night we received the results of the second round on the 1026 Hutt Camera Club Ladder competition. The set topic was “hidden” and I had entered one image from my shoot with Wellington, and a second image shot specifically for the competition. I was really happy when it was announced that my first image received a “honours” but absolutely over the moon when the second one got the same mark.
Over the last two weekends I have had the situation where I had stepped out from behind the lens to be in front of it. I do this occasionally because as a portrait photographer I do not feel that you can really produce the best if you can’t feel what it is like to be the subject.
Last week it was at a portrait field trip associated with the Photographic Society of New Zealand annual convention in Queenstown. That was a relatively simply shoot.
However yesterday it was a completely different affair as I helped out Upper Hutt photographer Mandi Lynn who was working on some images for entry into the upcoming professional body awards.
I was turned into the victim of a zombie attack. This involved half an hour of makeup and the application of a lot of blood. Some of the positions that I had to get into were not the most comfortable but the end result looked really good. I can’t wait to see the final image in early June.
Photographer Mandi Lynn and me along with the two youngest zombies.
Last night was the judging of the first club competition for the year. The theme was “alternative view” and so I decided to enter the image I had taken of Kat. I figured that this was not the normal way that a portrait would appear.
It would appear that I was right as the judge awarded it a “Merit”. This is the second level down from the top mark that can be awarded, so I am really pleased with the result.
This week i got some great news. I had submitted an image for consideration of being selected to represent the Photographic Society of New Zealand (PSNZ) in an international competition run by the Federation of International Photographic Art (FIAP).
PSNZ was entering an “Open Colour” section and had chosen to base a set on “Autumn Colours”. It needed to select 20 images. I anticipated that most people were going to submit landscapes so I submitted a portrait of Kat amongst the leaves.
As I understand it there was a very high number of entries and so I was really pleased to be selected amongst them.
The shot was taken over a year ago and you can read the full story behind it on this post.
I was pleased with my results in the first judging of the Hutt Camera Club 2015 Ladder competition receiving a Merit and a Commended. This post is about the Merit image that I had entitled “Mummy”
Mummy
When the topic of “The Street” was announced I decided that I wanted to do an image of a small child on a large street to show lowliness. I wanted to shoot it against a street that had large buildings on each side which would have further emphasised how small the child was. However in order to be safe I intended to shoot the street and the child separately and then composite the two together.
I took some shots in Featherston Street Wellington one morning while trying to ensure that I dodged the traffic. Around where the old General Motors plant was in Upper Hutt there is a new industrial area that has all of the roads laid out but as they have never sold any of the sections is blocked off so there is no traffic
The little girl is named Aubrey and she is the daughter of Ali, a model I have shot on a number of occasions. I met her just before Christmas and found her to be a very smart and articulate 2 year old, so I had figured that she would be great for the shoot.
Now there is an old adage that you should never work with either children or animals and this certainly came into play.
Aubrey woke up from her afternoon nap in a bad mood and by the time she arrived at the location it had not improved much. Unfortunately when we arrived we also found 5 police dog cars at the gate as they were using the area for dog training. While they were all under control and well away from where we were shooting Aubrey did not like the look of them at all.
I decided to shoot anyway so Ali carried her down the road, put her down and then quickly walked away. The shots were taken in a single set as by this stage Aubrey was heading towards the sort of tantrum that only 2 year olds can throw.
I ended up not putting the composite together as I thought that the image was strong enough without it, and given that it got a Merit then the judge agreed.
I posted last week that my image had received Honours in the Photographic Society of New Zealand Central Regional Salon. I also told you that I had been present when the images were judged so I knew that the final decision of who won the cup had been between my image and a black & white portrait.
pwfotos 