A Tale of Two Prints

by AwardsUncategorized

This is a long post. I’m not sure I could tell this story effectively with fewer words. Sit back and have a read. (If you’re friends of mine or of Wanda’s on Facebook, you may have heard this story before…)

Last weekend Wanda and I went down to the Gold Coast for the AIPP’s annual national conference, the Nikon Event. Three days of lectures, workshops, and social events, culminating in a gala dinner and charity auction, where this year the speakers’ prints were auctioned off to raise money for the Make A Wish Foundation. Was a pretty damn fantastic three days, made even more fantastic by a bit of an unusual story.

Wanda is a massive fan of Australian fine art photographer Alexia Sinclair. As soon as Wanda discovered her work, she knew she wanted to own a piece someday. Normally Alexia’s pieces are very limited edition, selling for thousands of dollars. For her most recent series A Frozen Tale, she made one of her pieces, “Cabinets of Curiosity”, available to buy for one month only. (Take a break from my little story to read about it and watch the video for a pretty cool behind-the-scenes look at producing Cabinets of Curiosity.)

Wanda texted me right on the deadline for buying a print, and I may have fibbed to her and told her that we’d missed it… because I’d just bought one and tucked it away for her as a surprise birthday present! Ten points to me, I’m a terrible gift-buyer, and to buy the right thing and keep it as a surprise is a big deal for me. I knew she would love it when the surprise was revealed – but for now she was heartbroken that she’d missed it.

At the Nikon Event, Robert Gatto from Kayell and Glen TeWierik from Canson ran a competition – bring an image, print it at the Kayell stand, and put it up on the wall, and Alexia would choose her favourite print each day. The winner on each of the three days received a Cabinets of Curiosity print! Wanda was super-excited, and very keen for one of us to have a crack at winning this print. Ah, hmm. What to do, what to do. I already had one tucked away for her, but if I didn’t enter, or entered something that wasn’t very good, I’d look like a completely unsupportive and horrible husband.

So I put my best foot forward, entering the Dawn image that did well at the 2014 QPPAs. And that was the print Alexia selected!

To say Wanda was over the moon would be a pretty serious understatement! Pretty sure you could hear her squeals of delight from Brisbane. Me on the other hand, now I had a little conundrum – two identical prints, and since one of them was still a surprise, I couldn’t share my problem with Wanda. “Hey Wanda, you know that print I won that you super duper love? I’m going to give it to my mum. Mmkay?”

We knew Rob and Glen from a landscape workshop last year, and both of them knew that I had a print tucked away for Wanda’s birthday. When they mentioned it to Alexia and her husband James, they wondered if I would be up for donating the print to the print auction. The idea caught me by surprise… but totally the right thing to do, and I was keen. All I had to do was get Wanda on board. I broke the news to Wanda that I’d been storing one away for her, and now we had two. I was hoping she’d agree to putting it in to the auction. “So… What do you want to do?” Her very first instinct was to suggest that we give the print up for the auction. I’m so proud of her and her generous heart!

The excellent AIPP folks listened to the story patiently, and then they were on board as well. Normally they limit speakers to putting in one print only, but they made a bit of an exception because of the unusual circumstance.

Jerry and Melissa Ghionis are hugely well known in the photography world, both for their photography and for their talents in speaking and teaching. They confided in us afterwards that they fell in love with Cabinets of Curiosity during Alexia’s keynote, and they were really hoping it would be the one that was up for auction!

At the gala dinner, after Alexia’s first print went up and was sold, the MC (Tony Hewitt, Australian Professional Photographer of the Year 2013) told the story, and up comes Cabinets of Curiosity. After a bit of a fierce bidding war, Jerry and Melissa Ghionis came out on top, bidding $4300!!

$4300!!

All up, just shy of $60,000 was raised for the Make a Wish foundation, including $16,000 from a print shot and produced over the Event by our friend and 2013 AIPP Australian Portrait Photographer of the Year, Mandarine Montgomery. That’s pretty cool, and it will make a big difference to some kids that really deserve something good. And we got to be a little part of the story. It was a pretty amazing way to end the three days. I think we’re still both buzzing off of that energy. Wanda’s generous heart was full to bursting.

That’s not our actual Cabinets of Curiosity print in today’s photo… it’s just a postcard. The print is still safely tucked away in its acid-free wrap in that black tube, ready to go to the framers. High five to our friends Fiona Handbury and Mandarine for winning prints as well!

2014 Queensland Professional Photography Awards

by Awards

2014 is the third year I’ve entered the Queensland Professional Photography Awards (aka “the QPPAs”, which our kids think is hysterically funny). I’m pleased to say it was a successful year for me, with four prints receiving Silver awards, including my first two submissions in the Travel category.

Submitting prints to an AIPP judging is quite a strange experience really; you select images that speak to you and that you think will speak to a panel of judges, you tune them to make sure they’re as strong as they can be, then print them and matt them on a standard size board, pop them in a print case, and send them on their way. OK, summarising it in one sentence doesn’t sound too bad… It’s amazing how much time and attention and angst gets poured in to that little print case.

Each year I learn a bit more about the process, and hopefully a bit more about what it takes to be successful. This year I paid a lot more attention to print quality and paper, and after some professional critiquing went to legendary landscape photographer Darren Jew to help with my printing. I think that had a positive outcome. I learned a lot watching the judging too, especially what the judges look for with respect to communication with the viewer. I’m really proud of what I submitted to the QPPAs this year, but I’m even more focused on next year’s submission now.

Here are the images – hope you enjoy them 🙂

Dawn at dawn – Silver award, Illustrative category

I’m still very happy with the session we did with Dawn back in 2013. (That was a big photography day for me; after getting up well before sunrise to shoot the band, I headed off to Hair of the Dog, an AIPP conference focused on learning and workshops, not to mention hanging out with other passionate photographers.) This was actually the last image to be included in my submission; it’s one of Wanda’s favourites, and she really wanted to see it go up for judging. And she did. And it went well.

Stepped Pool – Silver award, Travel category

This image came from our trip to Bangalore in 2013. The Bhogandishwara Temple outside of Bangalore was a fantastic place to visit. This stepped pool was magnificent.

When we first came in to the stepped pool area, there were five or six tourists around, and a dog or two as well. We wandered around, taking a few images and generally being awed by this ancient building.

This man in white came in and sat, probably like he’s done every day for thirty years, and probably like he’s going to do for the rest of his life. And then, one by one, the tourists filed out, until for a few seconds the pool was empty save the three of us and the man. I motioned Wanda and our photographer friend Hari towards the back of the pool area, lined up the shot, and took two exposures before more people came in. Good timing I think.

Dream Weaver – Silver award, Travel category

Most of the time when you’re in a shop buying something, you know it was probably manufactured a thousand miles away, and passed through twenty pairs of hands to get to you. Not this time. On our Bangalore trip, while Wanda and our friend Neeru were in a silk shop, our driver Rajesh led me out of the shop and through an adjacent door, then through a winding dark hallway. I’ll admit to being very curious and maybe a little apprehensive about it… Until he opened a door to this man, working on a pretty amazing and very noisy silk loom, weaving items for sale next door.

This is probably my favourite picture from our Bangalore trip.

Lonely Walk – Silver award, Illustrative category

This is one of my favourite images from a self-commissioned shoot we did late last year with Elizabeth Best. We had a fantastic little crew to put this together, including Shane Skerik, Nigel Riley, and make up artist Danielle Riley (Principal MUA of à la lumière Makeup and Beauty) – the crew really brought this shoot to life. Although we did have a little man-made rain to start the shoot, I think by this stage Mother Nature came to the party with a good downpour.

Because this image went to a challenge in the QPPA judging, I was treated to a fantastic critique of the print. I love it as it is, but if I take it to the APPAs (the national awards later this year) I have a few things to try…

 

Australian Professional Photography Awards 2013

by Awards

This year I had a pretty successful outing at the 2013 Queensland Professional Photography Awards, with two Silvers and two Silver Distinctions, as well as picking up the category award for Emerging Photographer of the Year. With that under my belt, I had the guts to enter the AIPP Australian Professional Photography Awards for the first time. That’s a big step up – having your work judged alongside the country’s top-tier photographers is a little daunting!

A few weeks back at the opening of an exhibition of some photographer friends, Ian Poole (respected Queensland photographer and APPA judge) said one of the most important things you can do as a photographer is to nail your work on the wall and walk away. You’re not there to defend your work; your work has to defend itself. So I’m glad I have the confidence to give that a go!

As an Emerging Photographer, I may enter up to three prints in the APPAs. I’m pleased to say that two of my prints (the ANZAC memorial, and “Angry Steve” as I’ve started calling it) each earned a Silver award. My third print was only a few points off of Silver, still professional quality, but not quite medal-worthy. Could I have done better? Sure. Am I happy with how I went? TOTALLY! As high as the standard of prints at the QPPAs were, the standard at the APPAs appeared to be much higher, something my spies at the awards agreed with. Knowing a few of my prints were hung on the Silver wall next to some pretty amazing work? That’s awesome.

I have to thank Shane from Shane McCaffery Portraits – smcportraits.com for his help with matting my prints for the APPAs. He took time out during a pretty busy time for his family, and I really appreciate it.

There was a little added bonus at the end of all that. Somehow, chance favoured me, and I was one of 6 winners of the Canson APPA Print Competition. It’s a two-day trip to the Mornington Peninsula for a Landscape Masterclass with Peter Eastway and Les Walking! (Non-photographers, those names are your cue to Ooh and Ahh.) Landscape photography is pretty challenging to me – it should be an excellent chance to learn and really push myself.

I owe my wife Wanda massive thank-yous; she helps me think, critiques my stuff, pushes me to do better, and supports me all the way. She rocks, and I love her to bits.