Recently I was awarded two silvers in the wedding category of the Kodak Gold Awards and a silver in the Wedding Album category… YAY!!

The “Classic Portrait” was a newly added category at the New Zealand Institute of Professional Photography Iris Awards this year.  It was added after many requests for an award that was about REAL photography, not about how good you were at photoshop!  The following images were the ones that earned me a place as a finalist in this category…

Sometimes with the Iris Awards, you can figure out who the finalists will be in each category, but in the case of the Classic Portrait, I must admit that I had absolutely no idea that I was a finalist until they announced my name at the Gala Awards dinner!

It was a great surprise, and means a lot to me because being a finalist in this category recognises how good our studio is at producing great, authentic images that don’t need to be photoshopped to within an inch of their lives to be good.  Nice.

Congrats to the super-talented Mike Hill who took out the title of Classic Portrait Photographer of the Year

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…

I was pretty chuffed to find out that one of my images made it to the Top 30 in this years Auckland Photo Day.  Part of June’s Auckland Festival of Photography, the photo day is a designated 24 hours in which Auckland’s photographers capture their city and all it means to them.  My shot of my gorgeous daughter Jessie leaping over a little beach stream was selected from over 1350 entries… choice!

All the winning photos can be viewed HERE

This Summer’s edition of NZ Bride and Groom has a few of our photos in it  – exciting!!  It showcases two of our Waiheke Island weddings in it’s ‘real weddings’ feature and also has one full page ad (which was my prize for winning the NZIPP Wedding Album of the Year award last year).

This is the first feature of Ingrid and Shaun’s wedding at The Estate in Church Bay…