Category Archives: Photography Awards

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 PSNZ Letters

 

One of the opportunities available to PSNZ members is to submit works for consideration of “letters”.

There are 3 levels of award and full details are available on the PSNZ website.

You can start by applying for Licentiateship  or you can skip this and go straight to  Associateship . Associateship once achieved entitles you to go,after 2 years for Fellowship, where you submit a set of 18 images on a tight theme. The other grades require 10 and 12 image portfolios respectively. As I submitted an associateship I will comment on this.

 

Again the rules are available on the website, but for me I found it hard to be clear, even after reading these, so I offer up my interpretation of the important aspects, as someone  who has been through the process. (Remember that this is my personal opinion only)

The important aspects are:

 

-ability to show photographic skills/competence

-follow a theme but don’t have to

-creative/artistic

-flow

 

Competance and skills is presumably a given, composition, focus, exposure, processing, printing and mounting all spot on.

The theme aspect I don’t  fully understand the rules but think that for most applicants there is a theme but it is of a more general nature e.g.photoimpressionism, street photography,  arches, rather than say Queen St or arches in Christchurch Cathedral . The bottom line is that you need to approach the flow as you would a one man exhibition.

Artistic, creative

My experience was that the hardest aspects were to weave the last 3 aspects together, particularly to get a flow. My observations of the sets at conference was that flow can be achieved by such elements as style, colour, linking composition or lines.

 

So to my set; I took a risk and put together a set of nudes. I was interested in the form of subject.  Below a excerpt of some of the portfolio.

Final line Female Form Portfolio Roger Wandless©2012

PSNZ bookmaking talk

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April 30th  PSNZ and Bookmaking Talk

 

As promised a summary of my bookmaking talk.

 

But first a few comments  about the conference. As it drew to a close I pondered as to why it was so enjoyable, stimulating and useful. They were four big days of first rate talks, hands on workshops, trips , exhibitions, probably into the thousands of images ( by the end even I was suffering from visual overload!) comprehensive and helpful trade stands but for me the power is in the people from the big names to fellow delegates. For under $500 it is unbelievable value for anyone interested in photography.

 

And finally to the Organising committee simply a big “Thank you!”

 

So to my talk.

Thank you for the positive comments. Given that it was all put together at short notice it is a relief to receive these!

As in any presentation there is a portion devoted to introducing yourself to your audience. Additionally I did small group work where students were given a book to critically appraise from a design perspective, so what is below is the salient underlying principles I have noted from my experience of self publishing.

 

Key points

-concept

-design

-flow

-structure

-marketing

 

Concept

This is about the story, solving a problem for a customer (eg how to do, gift idea), or is new, different, or better

Design

I believe less is more. Look at lots of publications critically and decide what you like or you don’t and why. Keep a note of this. Whilst with software enables anyone to acquire the skills to do basic design a good designer will make a big difference. In other words the extra 10% can matter!

Flow

Many elements to this

-Cover to the book

-Story and images

-Overall flow of the book

-Rhythm. Books have this and blank pages are a good example of how to provide this.

-Images traditionally start and end with moody images, sunny images are in the body of the book.

-Spreads match in terms of horizons, composition and colour

-Scale context. A small landscape image next to a large detail image looks wrong

The list is not exhaustive I’m sure!

 

Structure

Is about structuring the story and is linked to many of the design aspects.

Also consider the physical size, shape and thickness as well as the aspects of introduction, contents, chapters afterword, others (eg maps) and index.

But also this relates to how to structure the project forma business perspective.

Write some form of business plan (if this is to be a for sale publication).

Write a draft brief.

 

Marketing

Wasn’t covered in the talk other than to say that it is about telling people about what you do.

 

Draft brief

What is the book about?

Dimensions style of book

Expand on what the image is about

The market, what similar books are out there

Why should anyone buy your book?

What is your target market?

Price range

What material you have

What material you need

The team: designer, image scanner for pre-press, printer

Proposed timeline

 

Story

Has a start middle and end. Start and finish strongly

Subplots

Details

Relate text to images

 

So it doesn’t seem to much when I write it down, which is probably a good thing!

Enjoy!

 

The conference raised a number of interesting topics which I will cover in future weeks and hopefully stimulate discussion.

 

 

 

D-photo competition award 2011

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Roger Wandless photography - St Marks, Venice

 

The beginning!

Have finally got myself organized an into the 21st Century and have the pleasure of introducing this my addition to the world of blog.

 

I started the week with a pleasant surprise when my wife handed me my mail which included the latest edition of D-Photo. I had entered the competition because I wanted to win the Nikon D3000 for a camera for her but also to try and win a significant competition, something which has successfully eluded me. As a consequence I had sympathy with the argument that winning was merely endorsement by a particular judge.

Anyway I had received a call from the magazine several weeks ago to request I send a larger file but then had heard nothing, so had resigned myself to the position of honourable mentions. So with that in mind I opened up this months edition to find out what the images were that did win. I have to say that it appeared to be a successful competition with over 2000 entrants and the winners were also of a high caliber. Coming to the travel section there it was my image! I’d finally won something!

 

It has prompted to explore the relevance of photography competitions as part of our development as a photographer?  I think that it is great as a way of giving confidence and gaining validation for your ones work. On the other hand we may try and photograph to a formula rather than true to our own view of the world! What do you think?

 

Anyway here it is, the winning image

section competitions/nikon2011/travel