The NZIPP Iris Awards are always a highlight of the year for us Photographers. Its a chance to to challenge yourself and push your creativity to new levels. This year was very different, as it was the first for me serving on the Honours Council, who are the board responsible for organising and running the awards. It was a full on week, very busy, but I am immensely proud of what our team achieved – particularly as we were a new team had only met for the first time in February! We had the leadership of Tracey Scott, Honours Council Chair steering us through, and it was a real team effort. We couldn’t have done it without the incredible support around us – the NZIPP board, Sarah McGregor (NZIPP Executive Director) the Ucol students, the events team, the AV crew and the IT genius of Paul Jones.

For me personally, I had a amazing year with my entries, and will talk about them below. But the highlights were definitely getting my first Gold, gaining the Honours Distinction Level of Master with Distinction and being a category finalist for the first time!

I was thrilled (and very much surprised!) to find myself as a finalist for the Wedding Open Category. There are some extremely talented wedding photographers who enter this category, people I really look up to, so to be named as a finalist with them was such an honour.

My winning Wedding Open entries are below

My Gold Award, below, in the documentary Category.

Comments from one of the judges – ‘The graphical elements, the thought in putting this together the way they have, is just stunning” Mel said “The whole thing is put together so beautifully. The last image is so well thought out because it just finishes it with this jump. Its beautiful, well seen, well captured and well presented in a unique way which we don’t often see in documentary”

My entries into the Portrait Open Category – a Silver with Distinction and Two Silvers.

I was pleased that there was some great discussion  around these, and the communication was coming through.

Of the Blue image at the bottom, the comment from one of the judges was “What I love is that you have this figure hiding behind this veil of insecurity, and then clutching onto it at the same time with such power so your eye is drawn to the focused hand and fabric and then you find the person hiding underneath there. And this happens so often in life where people get hidden behind their feelings, or their insecurities or whatever it is. I think the darkness of this image reinforces that so well. I gave it 88 because it makes me really feel something about this person even though I don’t know who they are”

And last but not least my Bronze Awards in the Landscape in Camera Category. I love this print of the multiple exposure of Mt Cook, and had higher hopes for it but I wonder if my love for this image has more to do with it bringing back memories of our South Island road trip with the family? Regardless, I love it and it will be going up on the wall!

The trees were also shot on our South Island road trip and are another multiple exposure. I couldn’t decide which crop to use, so I sent them both to a friend who said, oh I like the Diptych. It wasn’t meant to be a diptych, but after that comment I decided to keep it like that! One of the judges commented that they thought the rock was distracting – I was trying to decide if it was a distraction or grounding?