Winner AIPP 2018 Victorian Professional Photography Awards Documentary Category

Posted in Antarctica, Arctic, Iceland, Media, News and Updates, Photographs, Travel Photography, Uncategorized, Wildlife Photographs1 Comment

The 2018 AIPP (Australian Institute of Professional Photography) Victorian Professional Photography Awards concluded last night with the awards presentation at 1140 Studios in Melbourne (Judging was held on Tuesday and Wednesday this week). I was very pleased to be honoured as the overall winner for the EPSON Victorian 2018 Professional Documentary Photographer of the Year as well as being a finalist in the Nature category. I have previously won the Nature Category (formally the Science, Wildlife and Wild Places category) in 2014 and was also a finalist in 2015, 2016 and 2017. I also won the Documentary category last year so its fantastic to back that up with a repeat win.

Like last year I decided to split my print entries across the Documentary and Nature categories for 2018. All of the images were awarded either Gold, Silver with Distinction or Silver awards.Documentary Category – Adelie Penguins Ride Blue Ice in Antarctica – Silver Award 83Documentary Category – Lone Gentoo Penguin Antarctica – Silver with Distinction 86Documentary Category – Mother and Cub – Silver with Distinction 89 (one point from Gold)Documentary Category – Male Polar Bear on Blue Ice – 90 Gold AwardNature Category – Hawk Owl – 83 Silver Award Nature Category – Atlantic Puffin Fly By – 80 Silver Award
Nature Category – Back Lit Polar Bear – 84 Silver AwardNature Category – Polar Bears at Play – 84 Silver Award

From my previous post on these awards: The AIPP National and State awards are two of the few remaining competitions to actually judge the finished print and they do so using a panel of judges all deemed experts in their respective genres and accredited as Masters of Photography through their years of success in this arena. Prints are judged in a controlled lighting environment and assessed for their content, originality as well as technical craftsmanship. The judging is enthralling to watch and can be quite nerve wracking if you are a first time entrant as the standard of work is incredibly high. 

Skylum Updates Luminar to Jupiter with Big Performance Increase

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Skylum software has just updated my favourite processing plug-in to Jupiter. The update 1.2.0 for Luminar 2018 is available now as a free update to all current users of Luminar 2018, and includes adding Batch Processing and a Free Transform tool to the Windows version. This update also features over 300 improvements and updates that make the app faster, more responsive and useful than ever.

The most essential features of the upcoming update are:

  1. Speed (Performance & adjustments): Dramatically increased the speed of editing across all areas of Luminar 2018.

  2. Automatic Lens Correction: RAW Develop filter analyzes your image and the metadata to calculate a one click Automatic Lens Distortion fix.

  3. Enhanced image quality on image view:  Most of the demosaic and green equilibration issues have been fixed.

  4. DCP Profiles Support (for the Mac version only. Coming to Windows soon): Luminar 2018 recognizes the industry standard DCP files that you may already have on your computer (or have bought from third parties).

  5. Import speed (for the Mac version only. Coming to Windows soon): re-engineered RAW import, optimized for speed.

  6. Windows version catches up with Mac: Added Batch processing feature, Free Transform image feature, Flip/Rotate image feature to the Windows version.

Here is a full list of the new features and improvements:

MAC:

  • Fast RAW opening;

  • Super fast image editing and adjusting;

  • Faster image export;

  • DCP Profiles support;

  • Automatic Lens Correction (fix Lens Distortion, remove Chromatic Aberration and Defringe);

  • Enhanced image quality on image view – most of the demosaic and green equilibration issues have been fixed;

  • Big number of stability fixes;

  • UI and UX improvements;

  • Localisations updated (German, Japanese, Chinese & more).

    WINDOWS:

  • Super fast image editing and adjusting;

  • Faster image export;

  • Batch processing feature;

  • Free transform image feature;

  • Flip/Rotate image feature;

  • Automatic Lens Correction (fix Lens Distortion, remove Chromatic Aberration and Defringe)

  • Big number of stability fixes;

  • UI and UX improvements;

  • Localisations updated;

  • Added ability to change localisation language in the application main menu;

  • Fixes with color profiles on export/in plugin mode;

  • Preview mode feature added (F hotkey);

  • Enhanced image quality on image view – fixed most of demosaic and green equilibration.

Victorian State AIPP Professional Photography Awards 2018

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Tomorrow is the official kick off for the 2018 Victorian Professional Photography Awards. Being held at Swinburne University, Building 2L, “The Atrium” 2 Luton Lane, Hawthorn, I will be in attendance as a judge on both Tuesday and Wednesday this week. I will be judging the Nature, Travel and Landscape categories. If you are local, or in the area with some free time its well worth stopping past to check out some of the award winning prints and watch some judging. Hope to see you there. 

New Zealand South Island Masterclass Workshop 2018 SOLD OUT

Posted in Landscape Photographs, New Zealand, News and Updates, Photographs, Travel Photography, UncategorizedLeave a comment

My 2018 Masterclass workshop to the South Island of New Zealand next month is now sold out. This will be the last year that I offer this workshop for the foreseeable future. As much as I love New Zealand and its ‘middle-earth’ landscapes I will instead be focusing my efforts from 2019 forward on Tasmania and certain carefully chosen locations with Australia (on top of my usual Polar expeditions). The Australian offerings are going to be few and will fit between my Polar trips where possible. To those of you who have asked in recent months about a future New Zealand trip the short answer is ‘yes’ – but not in 2019 , or 2020. 

Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year 2018 Finalist

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I returned home to Australia early yesterday morning to some wonderful news that I am a finalist in the 2018 Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year. I cant as yet share which photograph/s (or in which category) made the finals as I believe the final judging is not yet complete; but I will post up the photograph as soon as all is said and done in July. The photograph will also feature in the 2018 exhibition and the 2018 book.