2015 has arrived with a bang and I am very excited to announce that the short film – A Polar Photography Expedition Experience, that I produced last year with Untitled Film Works has been Highly Honoured as a finalist in the most recent Nature’s Best Photography Awards. Video is a new category for the Nature’s Best Photography Awards and it is a fantastic thrill to have been highly honoured as a first time entrant into this new category. Untitled Film Works will be joining me again this year on my Kingdom of the Ice Bear expedition to produce a new video of our experiences as we photograph the king of the Arctic – the Polar Bear. Look for the new video toward the end of this year. You can watch the highly honoured Polar Photography Expedition Experience video by clicking on the image below.
Category: Media
Media news including interviews, awards, print publications and articles
Happy New Year! Win a Free Fine Art Print of the Photo of the Month
Another year has now come and gone – where do they go! In many ways I am quite sorry to see the back of 2014 (Read the Retrospective). It was an incredible year for me and in many ways I feel a turning point in my photography. However, it is now time to look forward and begin the new year in earnest. Before I leave for Yellowstone in Winter in a few weeks time I want to announce a new print project give-away that will kick off with my first Photograph of the Month post for 2015.
It has continually frustrated me over the last few years that I really only get to share a digital jpeg of my finished photography on the internet and not the finished fine art print as I envisioned it. The problem with sharing digital images online is that we are restricted to low quality jpeg images to protect our copyright ownership (and sadly images still get taken and used without permission). These low resolution jpegs are just poor facsimiles of the finished fine art print that fail to convey the wonderful tones, textures and subtelties that a well crafted print can convey.
Photography for me is all about the print and as I have written often before I never really feel like I have finished with an image until I have made a well-crafted print. Other than visiting one of the galleries that display my photography in Australia, Tasmania or Aspen in the USA and perhaps purchasing a large fine art print there has to date been no way for me to really share this aspect of my photography. However, I have a plan to change that and beginning immediately, and with every photograph of the month for 2015 I will be giving away free a 13″ x 19″ inch signed, open edition fine art print to the first person who comments on the photograph of the month post here on the main page. Each print will be of the actual photograph of the month and will be made on my favourite fine art paper – Moab Somerset Museum Rag. I use X-Rite Colour Management products in my print workflow and my prints are made on Canon IPF6350 and IPF9400 Large Format Pigment ink printers. This is the same paper, printer and colour management solution I use for all my large gallery prints and the same paper my winning photographs were printed on at the 2014 Victorian Professional Photographer of the Year Awards and 2014 Australian Professional Photography Awards. All you need do to win the print is to be the first to comment on the photograph of the month here on the home page with your thoughts on why you like it and to share the post with your social media outlet of choice. It doesn’t have to be a long winded explanation on why you like the photograph. Just a few words about how it makes you feel, or why you would like to own a print of the photograph is sufficient. I will then send you a FREE 13″ x 19″ inch fine art print to your nominated address including free shipping worldwide.
My reasons for giving away a print every month are two-fold. Firstly, this allows me to share in some small way the finished photograph in my medium of choice with someone who appreciates the photograph and who will hopefully cherish the print; but it also allows me to give back something to the photographic community and share my finished photography with other photographers.
Due to my hectic travel schedule it may take me some time to make and post out each print so if you are the lucky winner for a given month I ask that you jut exercise a little patience and as soon as I am back in my studio in Australia and as soon as practical I will make the print and send it to you – free of charge. Each print will be made and personally signed by me with the same care and attention to detail I exercise on my large gallery prints. There will be a total of twelve prints to win throughout the calendar year and the give away starts immediately with the 2015 January Photo of the Month – You just have to keep an eye out for the next post. Good luck and don’t forget in order to win the print you need to be the first to comment here on the home page on the post titled ‘Photo of the Month – [Insert Month]‘ for the 2015 calendar year with your thoughts on why you like the photograph or why you would like to own a print and to then share the post with your social media outlet of choice.
Hint: The fastest way to be notified of a new post to my blog is to subscribe to updates by entering your email address in the subscription section.
Travel Photographer of the Year Winner 2014 – Wild and Vibrant Category
I have just returned home to Australia after spending the last two months in South Georgia Island, Patagonia and Antarctica. Two months photographing in these incredible wilderness areas was as always a fantastic experience that was wonderful to share with so many like-minded friends and participants. I will have photographs to share and a lot more to say about these expeditions over the coming weeks once I get a chance to catch up on email correspondence, jet lag and family Christmas celebrations. Celebrations have at least started a few days early as I was very excited to learn on docking back in Puerto Williams from Antarctica that I had just won the 2014 Travel Photographer of the Year award in the Wild and Vibrant category. I only learned I was even in the TPOTY Finals a few weeks earlier after I docked back in Ushuaia from my first expedition to South Georgia Island and Antarctica. In fact, it was a mad panic and rush to get the prints made remotely and submitted by the deadline for the final round of judging. I only had a few days between expeditions and had to engage a third party company to make the prints on my behalf. Had I the time I would have much preferred to make the prints myself but given my printer was more than several thousand miles away I had to settle for a high quality lab in the UK. Travel photographer of the Year is one of the few remaining competitions that still judge the printed image and it is a massive thrill and honour to have won the Single Shot Wild and Vibrant Category with one of my Polar Bear photographs from Svalbard in the Arctic.
The judges said “In a time of environmental change the polar bear has become a powerful symbol of man’s impact on our climate. The wildness of this image is evident but the image also conveys vibrancy, both in colour and in the sense of power and energy. The elegance of the setting contrasts with the gruesome natural way of life in this harsh environment of Svalbard while the two splashes of red connect death with survival.”
The winning photograph has subsequently been featured by the UK Daily Mail, National Geographic Itlay, The Guardian, The UK Telegraph, the German news website Spiegel Online and more. Winning Travel Photographer of the Year in the Wild and Vibrant Category has topped off for me what has been a truly incredible year in the competition arena. The standards in these competitions are incredibly high and it an immense honour to win the category.
I am very much looking forward to returning to the pack ice north of Svalbard later this year in search of more Polar Bears on two separate photographic expeditions – Wild Polar Bears and Kingdom of the Ice Bear. Due to a recent cancellation there is now a single place available on the Wild Polar Bears expedition. If you would like to take advantage of this opportunity to travel to the edge of the permanent pack ice and photograph Polar Bears just a few hundred miles south of the North Pole then just drop me an email for more information or to register your interest. You can also download a PDF information flyer from www.jholko.com
InFocus Australasia Magazine 25 Tips from Pro Photographers
The latest issue of InFocus Magazine was released late last month whilst I was in Antarctica, South Georgia Island and Patagonia and includes 25 Tips from some of Australia’s top professional photographers including one of my own tips for photography in inclement weather. InFocus is a free magazine available through the iTunes store for iPads. Thats code for it costs you nothing to subscribe and enjoy. Enjoy. 
Exhibition News from Fellow Photographers
In such a highly competitive world it has become somewhat of a rarity for photographers to promote the work of other photographers but I want to row against the tide for a moment and dedicate this post to three upcoming exhibitions from three individually talented photographers with whom I have been fortunate to travel with over the last few years. Martyn Lucas, Sam Krisch and Louisa Michelin are having individual photographic exhibitions over the coming weeks across the USA that will be well worth attending for those you who may be living nearby or in the relevant area.
Martyn Lucas’s Exhibition Ends of the Earth will run from the 10th of January until the 29th of March 2015 at the Bascom Centre for the Visual Arts. Sam Krisch’s Exhibition Elements will open on Friday the 5th of December 2014 at the Centre for the Visual Arts in Virginia. Louisa Michelin’s exhibition will open on Thursday the 18th of December 2014 at Sotheby’s International Realty in Poletto. If you live nearby I would encourage you to attend and enjoy the fruits of their artistic endeavours.
www.WILDNATUREPHOTOTRAVEL.com 