I’ve got a lot of great news to share. This years 2019 AIPP Professional Photography Awards involves ticking some pretty major career goals off my list.

First up in June we had the AIPP Victorian state Professional Photography Awards. I received 2 silver distinctions and 2 silver awards. My results also lead me to be a finalist in the Pet/Animal category once again. This is my fourth year running to be a finalist in the category is a huge achievement.

Fast forward to mid August and the AIPP Australian Professional Photography Awards where my results we’re even better. I entered the same 4 images, (one with some changes), but re-printed them all on a different paper making minor enhancement tweaks.

Creating for awards

This year, rather than just having all dogs as I’ve had in previous years, I decided I wanted to show more range and diversity in my overall folio of images by photographing some different animals. I also shot specifically for the awards to create some more conceptual images that I wanted to create for myself. Although this is very different to the work I generally create in my everyday shooting for clients. But what’s great about this is it’s pushing me creatively to go outside of my comfort zone and try something different furthering my photography, editing and post production skills. In turn I’m also able to offer these image creations as exclusive sessions for my clients as well. The awards obviously reward images which are of a high professional standard technically but it also rewards images which are unique, something new which the judges haven’t seen done before whether this is a technique or an idea, and especially images which tell a story and evoke emotion.⁣

Over my 5 years of entering the awards I am now getting fairly consistent results where generally my images are all being awarded. I feel I can gauge now whether what I am entering is award worthy. My long-standing next goal that I have been working toward is to be awarded a gold award. This year, I FINALLY managed to snap up not 1 but 2 gold awards! (I was starting to think these were an urban legend) as well as a Silver Distinction and a Silver for my other 2 images. Plus my photo book was also awarded a Silver. This meant my results also put me in the running as a Finalist for the Australian Pet/Animal Photographer of the year! This is such a HUGE achievement for me, that I am very proud of. I always have high expectations for the Victorian State awards, but never in a million years did I expect to be considered for the nationals from entrants covering all of Australia!

Having won a number of awards over the years I have now also achieved my Master Photographer status with the AIPP.

This is the image I created for the cover of my second Melbourne Rescue Dogs photobook – Longing for Love.

To get a Gold award for this image was actually totally unexpected! This image scored a Silver at the Victorian State awards in June and only just as well scoring 81, so I definitely wasn’t expecting this to do so well, even though I love it.

In the hope to get a better result at the Nationals, I reprinted it on a beautiful new metallic paper (the same as my green tree frog image) and I think this also helped to elevate it to the next level by giving it quite a different effect and feel. Although this was risky and I was actually very unsure about whether I liked it, it definitely paid off!

AIPP Epson Victorian Professional Photography Awards – Silver – 81
AIPP Australian Professional Photography Awards – Gold – 90

This image did really well at the Victorian awards in June with some great discussion, scoring a high Silver Distinction after being talked up. Then it did even better again at the Australian awards!

Photographed through glass this is an image which sometimes takes more than one look to fully understand the story (as was missed by a lot of the judges). The fly is photographed on the opposite side of the glass to the frog, so the irony of the story is that the frog cannot actually catch the fly, despite all his effort.

To hear the judges talk about everything I was trying to achieve in this photo and that they actually got the story really makes me feel so emotional and proud of what I can create and achieve.

I took a risk this time and chose a beautiful new metallic paper to print on and printed with the amazing Rocco Ancora and Tanya Wilson at Capture to Print who helped to make this image literally pop off the paper! I’m so glad the judges picked up on this and it was talked about a lot. As these are print awards the printing and final presentation of the image is just as important as the image itself and can actually make all the difference in the scoring. My risk definitely paid off!

Although being talked up toward a gold award it just missed out scoring 89, however it then went up at the final review and scored 90 – GOLD AWARD. WHAAAAAHOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
AIPP Epson Victorian Professional Photography Awards – Silver Distinction – 87
AIPP Australian Professional Photography Awards – Gold – 90

This is the first time I’ve really gone out of my way to create a conceptual image from scratch. Normally this is way out of my comfort zone and not my typical style, but this is the great thing about entering the awards, as it’s really pushed me creatively.

This is an image that I wanted to create purely for myself, and it will give me such joy to have this on my wall, but knowing I could also enter this meant it gave me the confidence to actually create it.⁣
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With this image I was striving for gold and I really feel it has all those elements. I am very disappointed it didn’t quite get there, it was so close, only 1 point off scoring a Silver Distinction – 89 at State and then an 85 at Nationals. It did however get a great response from two judges (both here and in NZ) who tried to take it to gold and I appreciate their passion to try and get the other judges to see it for what it is. It’s rewarding in itself to hear someone speak so positively about your work when they get the same feeling from it as you had intended. It’s an honour just to be in conversations for a gold.
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This is an especially emotional image for me and I am very attached to it. Not only for the amount of time that went into creating this, but for what it expresses and means to me. My girl as the Angel we see her as, we always call her, our baby angel, and feel we are genuinely spoilt to have her. It’s a play on the angel/devil on our shoulders trying to influence us one way or the other. Plus we all know cats are all Devils right.

AIPP Epson Victorian Professional Photography Awards – Silver Distinction – 89
AIPP Australian Professional Photography Awards – Silver Distinction – 85

Of course I had to enter my latest book into the Photographic Book category as well. Last year I entered my first book – From Lost to Loved, which unfortunately just missed out on an award scoring 79 and the judges scores were very varied. However it did get some interesting feedback about the layout and design which I tried to take into account with my second book.

This year I entered my second book – Longing for Love and I am very happy that it was awarded with a Silver award with all judges being pretty unanimous across the board.

It received some great comments from the judges which I think really empahasis the books meaning. Here you can listen to the judging video and the comments the judges made about it.

I’ve quoted some of the comments here which I think are very meaningful and are such great compliments to receive.

• “Obviously the photographer has a great affinity with their subjects and this shows in the book”
• “All the dog owners would absolutely love it”
• “The book has a strong message to think about the plight of dogs….they make a great contribution to our lives and the book is a great advertisement and acknowledgement of what they do for us.”
• “Dogs make a better contribution to society than a lot of humans do”
• “It’s nice to see a book that is designed for purpose, the design and layout is well thought out and implemented”

My photobooks make a great gift for any dog or book lover and can be purchased HERE with 10% of sales donated to the selected pet rescue groups.