August was awesome...September is going to be more!

Sep 5

2 min read

In August I attended the New Zealand Institute of Professional Photographers (NZIPP) conference and IRIS awards live judging event. If you want to see what the judging is like you can watch recordings on YouTube here and here, and here. As a seasoned conference attendee and presenter through my energy consultant career, I was expecting it to be interesting but just like every other conference...a bit boring at times... :-) How wrong I was: I was engaged, entertained, informed and LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF IT.... I also attended the live judging of the IRIS awards. This was my first professional awards, after a few years of the amateurs. I was delighted to win two silvers and four bronzes, and listen to incredible live feedback, which I knew was given with kindness and in the service of the image.

A favourite moment for me was hearing my South Coast Landscape being argued over between a bronze and a silver, with one judge loving the image which brought it up to silver, beautiful feeling! What an outstanding experience, I learned so much from the expert judges, so I recommend attending the live judging and soaking up the atmosphere!!!

I also got to hang out with my Astrophotographer partner in crime Rebecca McMillan, who introduced me to so many incredible photographers including the amazing Tom Rae who gave a brilliant talk on astrophotography and a course on advanced editing. It was also so cool to be there to see Rebecca be awarded her well deserved NZIPP Masters in Photography with Distinction.

Also in August, I got to interview and photograph an amazing group of artists as part of my September talks and exhibition at the home of Compassion as part of the South Coast Arts Trail on the 12th and 13th of September and the Friends of Tepa on the 26th September.... more on this in my next post :-)