My winning wedding album this year was from the absolutely stunning wedding of Stacey and Zac at  Cable Bay Vineyards on Waiheke Island.  Their wedding day was charming and elegant, emotional, heartwarming and just flowing in love from everyone involved.  And. so. much. fun.   I don’t think I laughed as hard at any other wedding this season, it was just a wonderful day to be part of and I am totally stoked that I won the Wedding Album of the Year award with it! 

More awards prints to follow over the next few days, including the images that got me a place as a finalist for the 2011 Classic Portrait Photographer of the Year!

Wow.  Just returned from the NZIPP annual convention and Iris Awards where I was awarded the Wedding Album of the Year trophy for the second year in a row!  This year I also received another ‘bar to my masters’, and was one of three finalists for the Classic Portrait Category, a new category this year which celebrates a ‘straight’ capture, i.e., an image that has not been digitally manipulated like so many of the current awards images are.

The convention itself was fabulous – a real treat, with heaps of great advice and inspiration from some awesome speakers.  Will post more info over the next few days along with my successful awards images and the details of the wedding album pages for those that have been asking me on FB.  Until then though, you will just have to look at my smiling (and slightly ‘stunned mullet’) face…

A little shout out to free e-mag NZ Photographer, edited by award winning commercial photographer Ollie Dale, president of the Auckland chapter of the NZIPP and all round good guy… Ollie, this shout out has NOTHING to do with the fact that my winning album is featured within your pages… honest.  Well, almost honest.

Wow, well, you could have knocked me over with a feather when they announced me as the winner of the NZIPP Iris Awards Wedding Album of the Year for 2010.  I was up against three other NZ photographers (Kate MacPherson, Sarah Beaufoy and Tony Carter) who are all spectacularly good and whose work I LOVE to pieces so it was such an honour and a wonderful surprise to hear them call my name.

Don’t mind that other little award in front of me, it belongs to the poor cropped out soul to my right who is the lovely Blair Quax, this years’ Wedding Photographer of the Year. Sorry about the whole cropping you out of the picture Blair…

As well as this accolade I received another Bar to my Masters (which means that I have received at least 10 points on the judging system since I was appointed the ‘Master of Photography’ distinction – each gold is worth 3 points, silvers 2 and bronzes 1 and each additional 10 points gives you another bar).  I also was awarded 1 Silver with distinction Award, 2 Silver Awards and 3 Bronze Awards!  A very good year and I am pretty happy with the results.  Here are the successful prints…

NZIPP Silver Award, with Distinction - Portrait Category

NZIPP Silver Award - Portrait Category

The photo above is of my lovely little boy Joe – what a little darling to let his mummy give him a mohawk!
And this shot below received a bronze and is a pregnancy photo of wonderful Waiheke physiotherapist-extraordinaire Ingrid, who very graciously climbed a bit of the way up a cliff face for me. (Thanks Ingrid!)

The photo above is of Onetangi Beach bride Toni hugging her mum as she walks down the aisle, petals all a swirling… LOVE this shot!  You can see Toni’s wedding HERE.

This shot below received a bronze in the wedding category and was from the wedding of Bec and Scott.  One of the judges scored it at 92 which is a GOLD but unfortunately the other 4 judges obviously didn’t feel the same way!  Stinko.  Bec’s wedding post is HERE

And lastly, a couple of my favourite layouts from the Wedding Album of the Year entry which were taken from the completely gorgeous wedding of Samantha and Graham at Delamore Lodge here on Waiheke Island – link to their blog post HERE.
I will try and upload a slideshow of the album in a few days time…

Thanks so very very much to all my fabulous brides who were happy to let me use their photos in this competition – You are all STUNNING!!  The Wedding Album of the Year category is sponsored by New Zealand Bride and Groom Magazine so thanks very much to them also for the support.
xx

There were some great images submitted to the 2008 Kodak Gold Awards, so I was especially pleased to receive a total of 4 Gold Awards and 1 Silver Award for my entries! I did well in the Album category again this year and was awarded a Gold Award for Tessa and Rick’s Album design (I will try and put up a slideshow of the album in the coming weeks).

My two portrait golds were from the pregnancy sitting of one of my “bellies ‘n’ babes” clients, Erin.  Her gorgeous little boy Adam is the little cutie hugging his mummy’s big bellie! So sweet.  Adam is a little power-rocket and spent most of the session running laps around my studio, so I was really pleased to have caught him in a still-ish moment.   Oh to have the energy of a three year old!

My Gold Award in the wedding category was from the wedding of Juliet and Fraser last January – it is a shot taken in the beautiful vines at Mudbrick Vineyard, one of the most popular venues on Waiheke Island.

And finally, my Silver Award in the Wedding category was one of the last shots taken during the creative session of Dan and Helen’s wedding in February this year.  They had their reception and ceremony at Saratoga Estate on what MUST have been the wettest day of the season!  I guess it goes to show that you don’t always need a perfect blue sky day to have great and award winning wedding photos.

For those of you who don’t already know; my new Emma Hughes Photography website is now live!  It feels like it’s been a long time coming and I LOVE the new site.  Have a squizzy and see what you think…