Regional Updates: The regions tell us what they have been up too recently

© JAY DREW

The Waibop crew came together in Cambridge for our October event to congratulate our Regional Photographer of the Year, Justin Aitken. We were also fortunate to hear from our other local award winners, Geoff Ridder, and Jay Drew. Justin did it again! We congratulate him for being such a legend and for consistently producing outstandingly creative images to win the Waikato & Bay of Plenty Regional Photographer of the Year. Justin graciously shared some of his winning images with us from the Iris Awards this year. Along with the photographs that he retained for the award of 2020 Wedding in Camera Photographer of the Year, Justin shared some of his travel and documentary images from Ethiopia. It was fascinating to hear about his experiences and challenges that he faced in putting himself in some uncomfortable situations. The images were raw, creatively composed, beautifully captured and processed. We were also fortunate to hear from Geoff Ridder, winner of the James White Memorial Award for Highest First Time Entrant and Finalist in the Commercial Category. As a long-time member who has been supportive in his role at WINTEC, it is really exciting for us that Geoff took the opportunity to enter this year and win such an amazing award. Shooting mainly car rally and circuit events, Geoff puts himself right in the midst of the action to capture some really interesting and slightly alarming images. He shared for us his processes, gear and where he places himself and his gear for his shots. He has an outstanding portfolio of commercial images and we look forward to seeing more from him. As the winner of the Highest Scoring Image in the Portrait category, we invited Jay Drew to come along and share her amazing image of a family in a lockdown bubble. She very humbly described how she went about capturing each member of the family, their likes and interests, their frustrations and little quirks. Jay’s image exemplifies for all of us how interesting life has been during Covid-19! Thank you for being brave in speaking with us, for demonstrating your editing workflow and for where your head was at creatively! Greg Webb from CR Kennedy also joined us to talk about colour management and getting colours to match from input to output. He explained how a camera captures true colours, a monitor displays them accurately and then a printer produces a photo that will match what you see on screen with a combination of targets and camera calibration software. Check out the link in the article below for more information.

https://www.crkennedy.co.nz/blogs Along with our legendary Christmas Party coming up on the 1 December, we are looking forward to seeing each other more in person next year with workshops and social events. Have a safe and happy break over summer!

Marama Shearer Thrive Photography Waikato/Bay of Plenty Regional Representative

© Tracey Scott © Tracey Scott© GEOFF RIDDER

© Marama Shearer

Wellington was fortunate to host the 2020 NZIPP Photography Summit in David Hamilton’s Flash Dog Studio. The Summit provided a diversity of information and creative ideas:

David Hamilton ran a Portrait Lighting Workshop in the morning on using a studio and studio lighting, and working with a model. This proved to be hands-on with the participants engaging with directing the lighting and monitoring the changes. Karolina Stus (NZIPP Expressive Photographer of the Year 2020) shared some of her expressive category artworks and showed us how she creates these beautiful, tactile, experimental pieces Jason Naylor, creative business coach, gave us 13 powerful ways to grow our marketing and our business. Jason showed us how a photography business is much more than great photos and on how to stand out and generate more enquiries. Tim Kelly held a session “Those difficult client conversations”. We’ve all had challenging situations with clients and Tim showed us how to communications with our clients positive, avoid conflict, and how to manage conflicts should they arise.

Our annual 10-10-10 event (held in November) provided us with a visual and creative feast with a smorgasbord of 10 photographers talking about ten of their images in ten minutes.

Yvonne Liew, a Wellington based wedding and family photographer spoke about the importance of scouting out the location before the photoshoot. www.yvonneliewphotography.com Tessa Williams’ presentation included images were at once abstract and very deep in meaning in terms of colonial narratives of ‘Who Māori are’. www.toibytessa.com or instagram @toibytessa In an excellent example of how broad photographic craft is, Reatha Kenny presented several remarkable images taken without cameras. Her subjects, human and non-human were placed on photographic paper and processed in the wet darkroom. Olivia Wakefield described her career change from the banking into an award-winning family photographer. Olivia humbly acknowledged the role of Jo Frances as mentor. www.jofrancesphotography.co.nz Nick Crarer described how his passion for surfing led to surf photography and then to weddings and landscape photography. Nick presented us with some truly magical images taken with a large format digital camera. www.nickcrarer.com

Joseph Kelly presented several images capturing the essence of the Australian outback recorded on a trip along the Oodnadatta Track - in the in the heat and the blowflies using a 4x5 view camera! www.josephkelly.com Hemi Phillips gave several tips on creating dramatic photos when working with harsh light under our clear skies. For more of Hemi’s tips go to... https://patina.photo/articles/category/For+Photographers Ehsan Hazaveh presented some images related to his recent exhibition “My life to live”, about the lives of refugee background workers. www.ehsanhazaveh.com

Another using a 4x5 view camera, Dean Zillwood presented several structured and posed images to convey messages he wished to tell, such as hierarchies in the workplace. This was accentuated with the images in which he appeared in the frame.

Instagram - @dzillwood. Catherine Cattanach introduced us to Heartfelt, an organisation of professional photographers dedicated to giving the gift of photographic memories to families who are losing a child. www.heartfelt.org.nz

Upcoming events - In 2021, we intend to hold more workshops outside of Wellington city. Karolina Stus is opening her new studio on the Kapiti Coast in early 2021 providing a great opportunity to explore and learn from Karolina’s creativity also a creative weekend workshop in the Wairarapa is being planned for early 2021!

Bob Zuur Moments of Light Photography Wellington Regional Coordinator.

Images © Bob Zuur

Canterbury/Westland have had a busy second half of the year! We’ve set a focus to visit different Studio’s, so members can show off their space. We all have our own spin on how we do things, so it’s great to see and discuss what others are doing. So far, we’ve been to see: Etta Images - Juliette Capaldi Linton Photography - Richard Linton Tandem Photography & Kate Christie Photography We look to keep this up in the new year. In August, we gathered to share photos “Born out of Lockdown”. Members were encouraged to bring photos created during lockdown, and to tell their stories. What an interesting evening, variety of images, creativity and imagination. It was a lovely evening of sharing, and finally getting back together post-lockdown. In September, we hosted Rachael Smith with “Everyday Printing to Fine Art and Beyond” workshop. She shared an enormous amount of information, and everyone walked away with a print. For the IRIS Awards, we had 30+ gathered to watch together. Fantastic evening of catching up, laughter, cheering our winners and do-gooders. October brought the fantastically talented Lisa Powers, a fine-art & commercial photographer originally from NYC. Using only vintage equipment and imagination, her images were inspiring. We were left pondering how she created many of them. A favorite was Michael Crighton, Jurassic Park author. She had heard him say that newspapers would be like dinosaurs someday. She had origami dinosaurs created from a New York Times, photographing him with this. He was thrilled with the idea, and it showed in the photograph. Our business’s have all fluctuated during such a tumultuous year. So in November, we had BeBrandYOU business coach/speaker/author Lorraine Taylor talk to us about the most important aspect of branding – YOU. Times have changed. She reminded to not look at what everyone does, but rather, what YOU bring forth.

Ann Worthy Stephenson Photoworthy Images Canterbury/Westland Regional Representative Images © Juliette Capaldi from Etta Images

October saw Rachael Smith and Gerard Emery (CR Kennedy) grace our area with their presence. Rachael traveled down with her FineArt to everyday print workshop. With a table full of gorgeous Ilford products Rachael spoke and demonstrated various different products to our members. There is always something to be learnt at any workshop and our peps certainly enjoyed this one. Thanks Rachael and thanks to CR Kennedy and Ilford for helping sponsor Rachael’s trip south. It is always difficult to choose a paper to print on without actually seeing any samples, so getting to touch and see the swatch book of all the glorious papers available was great. Thanks for the surprise product giveaway draw as well. It was much appreciated. John Foster bought his “Ways to work smarter and more efficient through the use of Lightroom Classic and Photoshop”. John is a retired NZIPP member who has an established photography school and photo tour business in Christchurch. John has put a lot of research into what he does and he is a very patient teacher. We had more people booked for this seminar but unfortunately they pulled out at the last minute which was a shame as this workshop was great. We all use these programs for our work yet I bet there is a huge percentage of people who just use a fraction of their full potential. It was great to follow along on a huge screen, no excuses for us to have missed anything. Thanks John for your patience and for sharing your knowledge with us.

12th of November saw Christmas come early for Coastal Otago / Southland NZIPP. For the lucky members who were able to make time in their busy schedules to attend Katherine Williams “Where my heart sings” seminar. What a energizing motivating passionate talk. We enjoyed listening to what makes Katherine tick and she opened up to share with us where the deep seated passion comes from. Let’s face it, it shines through in every shot Katherine takes. Typically always holding onto a camera and capturing not just images that show places, but they reveal heart, soul and feelings. Katherine talent is constantly being awarded through her entries in the awards each year. Well done Katherine on your 2020 success and thank you for making time in your life for our group of keen talented photographers. The talk was held at the beautiful garden venue of Glenfalloch Gardens, right here in Dunedin. It is a popular wedding venue, with an amazing cafe. Lunch afterwards was fabulous, I think I can 100% say a great day was had by all. :)

Donna-Marie Stark Shotz Photography Coastal Otago Regional Representative