NZIPP PRO REPORT - May 2017 by NZIPP NZ Institute of Professional Photography

PRO Report BE INSPIRED, BE SUCCESSFUL, BELONG

NZIPP MAGAZINE MAY 2017

NOT A MEMBER OF THE NZIPP YET? As an Accredited member of the NZIPP you have the support, networking opportunities and camaraderie of your peers within your industry. It also adds credibility for your clients that you are a professional photographer. Belonging to an institute that represents all areas of professional photography in New Zealand, and through our focus on education, advice, and a wide range of membership benefits we will help you improve the success and vitality of your business. Your accredited member benefits will include: · · · · · · ·

Epson NZIPP Iris Awards (member rates) Infocus Conference (member rates) Meeting and Networking opportunities Professional Development Membership Discounts PRO Report eMagazine Scholarships

Come along to your next regional meeting to check out what becoming a member is all about! Contact info@nzipp.org.nz

MISSION STATEMENT To champion, embrace and communicate excellence and professionalism in photography.

CONTACT NZ Institute of Professional Photography (NZIPP) P O Box 133158, Eastridge, Auckland 1146 New Zealand W: www.nzipp.org.nz E: info@nzipp.org.nz

We welcome your feedback and thoughts. If you have something to say, send it through to:

Cover Image:

info@nzipp.org.nz

Image © Alan Dove

PRO Report / Magazine of the NZIPP

CONTENTS Executive Updates

Member Profile

Presidents Report

Directors Report

Alan Dove

Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s In My Bag...? NZIPP News 05 Infocus 2017

Events & Useful Links

Accreditation Programme

Regional Updates 14

Auckland/Northland Region

Nelson/Marlborough

Wellington Region

Canterbury/Westland Region

Otago/Southland Region

Waikato/Bay of Plenty

Heidi Horton

Get Clicking

Regional and National Sponsors 47

Thanks to our Regional and National Sponsors

PRO Report / Magazine of the NZIPP

Â© Lindsay Adler

PRO Report / Magazine of the NZIPP

EXECUTIVE UPDATE

Presidents Report Katherine Williams FNZIPP IV – and AAIPP

With just a few short weeks to go until we ‘get off our islands’ and meet in Wellington, it’s been all go within the NZIPP national team getting all the finer details of InFocus, Iris Awards and Exposure 2017 locked down and ready to go. The next few days will see us bring more exciting announcements of some incredible presentations and live shoots with top international photographers that will to be delivered to you, beautiful photography lovers of New Zealand and beyond. When you see what we are bringing I hope you ask how has this much great educational and inspirational content been brought to us? Its through a deep love of the industry, belief we can be better, through great relationships and community, through the absolute conviction that photography deserves to be seen, and that mastery should be celebrated and revered within society – not just behind closed doors. We, as those who choose to exist within this crazy beautiful industry are the ambassadors of what we do, it is up to us to embody the values and belief that the capture and creation of photographs is important, valuable and worthy.

PRO Report / Magazine of the NZIPP

I have said it a thousand times, I will say it a thousand more - we can’t do this without our sponsors. Support them, build relationships … and preferably give them heaps of love in cold hard cash and then we can keep making great events, like the one I hope to see you all at, continue to happen into the long and distant future. Thank you so much for being part of this community, there’s a handful of tickets left to InFocus we’d love you to grab one. But if you miss out, please come along for the free stuff during Exposure and the Iris Awards judging. Love to see you off your island….and there.

PRO Report / Magazine of the NZIPP

7 Â© Amber Griffin

8 © Craig Denis Smith Wetjen

PRO Report / Magazine of the NZIPP

Image: International Space Station, Nikon D4, 2014

A CENTURY OF CHASING THE LIGHT

PRO Report / Magazine of the NZIPP

EXECUTIVE UPDATE

Directors Report Claire Birks, MNZIPP II

Backups are the most important maintenance function you can do on your website and if you’re not doing regular backups, all I can ask is “Why Not?”. You backup your client files, but are you backing up your own website? You can’t rely on your host to do your backups for you! Unless you are using a managed hosting company, you shouldn’t be relying on your shared hosting provider to be able to restore a backup for you. Yes, your shared hosts do run backups, but that’s more to protect themselves than for your peace of mind. In an emergency you can request that your hosting company restores your website to the most recent backup, but there is no telling how recent that backup is and how quickly they can implement that for you.

Why do you need to backup your site? Because any number of undesirable events can happen to your website. If you update the core files or a plugin, sometimes the update may not run properly and you may need to restore your backup and start again. If you’re updating/improving your site and playing in areas that you shouldn’t be (ie. PHP files), depending on the severity of the problem, you may need to restore your backup. If your website gets hacked, having a backup to restore from will mean all your hard work and current website doesn’t go down the drain. A backup is your insurance policy that should your site disappear or get messed up, you can restore your backup and your website will be back online and ready to go again quickly.

PRO Report / Magazine of the NZIPP

How often should you back up? How often you take backups will depend on how often both the site and database are being updated. But, Rule#1 for backups is to ALWAYS take a complete backup before you make any major changes to content or before updating major core files, plugins or your theme! And, it’s not a bad idea to have more than 1 backup as well. If you have a fairly static website which changes every month or so then fortnightly/monthly backups is a good solution. However, if you have an e-commerce site you might need to backup every hour, or possibly even consider some sort of incremental backup solution, to make sure that you don’t lose any transaction history when restoring. Updating your website with a blog daily? Then run a backup daily too.

What is the difference between a Database Backup and a Full Backup? A database backup will only backup your posts, pages, settings/options, post comments – basically all your content. A full backup does all your content, plus your theme files, plugins and any images contained within your posts/pages.

How to take a Backup? Whatever type of website you have, make sure you back it up regularly and reliably. You can initiate backups manually, for example by going to your control panel or using FTP (as long as you don’t have a database), or you could use a script to do it automatically (you might need to ask your web host to help). If you use a common CMS framework such as Wordpress, Drupal or Joomla you could use one of the many plugins and extensions that will do the backup job automatically for you – many of these are free. To backup your website files manually yourself, the easiest and most direct way is to access your files via FTP to your account and download all of the available files in your web directory. When downloading, make sure to view hidden files (such as .htaccess and .htpasswd files) so that you can download those as well. This provides you with immediate access to the files you may have lost, and they are now available for upload whenever you need them again. For backing up your database in pHpMyAdmin, login to your cPanel. Once you are in, select pHpMyadmin and select the database. You will see the option to “Export”. Select all the tables and both the structure and the data for those tables. There will be an option to ‘Save As’ or ‘Send’ which should be checked to prompt the download. It will then download the database as a .sql file to your local computer.

If you are unsure on how often to backup, below is my backup plan for 2 of my personal websites. Website 1. This websites content is only updated a few times a year. Core files and plugins updated monthly. Full backups are run monthly and database files backed up weekly. I keep a min of 6months worth of backups (I’m also a file hoarder) Website 2. This websites content is updated anywhere from daily to a few times a week. Core files and plugins updated every few weeks. Full backups are run daily and database files are run 4 times a day. I keep a min of a months worth of backups on file. Both sets of backups are kept on a cloud server, plus once a week a copy is downloaded to my computer.

I encourage you all to work out your best backup options and make it part of your regular admin.

PRO Report / Magazine of the NZIPP

NOW is the time ... to enter your photographs into NZ’s premiere professional photography awards

Online registrations NOW open For entry details visit - www.infocus.org.nz Online registrations close - 4pm, 31 May 2017 Print / Book delivery deadline - 4pm, 12 June 2017

S IRI AWARDS

Live Print Judging: 15 - 17 June 2017 Shed 6, Queens Wharf Wellington, New Zealand

Proud to be sponsoring the 2017 EPSON / NZIPP IRIS PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS

PRO Report / Magazine of the NZIPP

NZIPP ACCREDITATION

Accreditation Programme Sarah Beaufoy MNZIPP, Mel Waite FNZIPP & Shar Devine MNZIPP Accreditation Coordinators

ACCREDITATION

“”

We are very passionate about NZIPP and adhering to the professional standards of the organisation and industry as a whole. It is important for you to become Accredited, which is a recognisable professional business standard and is valuable for your ongoing growth as a professional photographer and NZIPP member. As a guide we would expect that members have a vast portfolio to select from when submitting. You would consider getting assessed for the accreditation category after completing at least; 30 weddings OR 45 portraits shoots OR 45 commercial shoots as the lead photographer. For any questions please contact your Accreditation Advisor or Accreditation Team. PRE-ACCREDITATION CHECK

Please remember before you can submit for Accreditation you must speak to an advisor. If you don’t have one already simply email us or contact your Regional Chair who will help find the right advisor for you.

The strongest path to assured success, is together

For those already on the path to accreditation, remember your accreditation advisor is there to help you, they have been chosen because they have great knowledge and skill and have a good understanding of what the judges are wanting to see in a submission. While they can’t guarantee a successful submission and we can’t make you use their advice, listening to their feedback recommendations and advice will not only help your chances of a successful submission, it will also strengthen your photography practice overall. ACCREDITATION DATES August and November 2017.

For any questions please email nzipp.accreditation@ gmail.com

PRO Report / Magazine of the NZIPP

REGIONAL UPDATES

Auckland / Northland Region Words by Chris Traill F.NZIPP

Our April meeting was the annual mock judging/photo critique for Iris Awards, with keynote speaker Kaye Davis G.M.NZIPP. I always find these sessions fascinating, and this night was no exception. Hearing differing opinions on a photograph. Scrutinising and articulating what we enjoy in an image is always entertaining and actually quite a challenge and art form in itself. We always encourage a relaxed vibe in the room, with interaction from everybody, should they wish, and not just the judges giving their thoughts. So it was never a dull moment with 30ish images to discuss, getting valuable feedback for their authors. Thank you to the judges for indulging in other people’s imagery and sharing your passion. Thank’s especially to Rachel Jordon FNZIPP for coming down from Kerikeri to try your hand. You’re right at home in that judging chair. Hope you enjoyed hanging out with us Aucklanders. It’s always great seeing Northlanders come down. Thanks to Gino Demeer of Cactus Studios for hosting us.

PRO Report / Magazine of the NZIPP

The most talked about image on the night I think was a photograph by Emma MacDonald. All the best Emma with tweaking it and finding the right paper and let’s hope it reaches its potential. We’ll be watching yours and many others with interest. Our invited speaker, Kaye Davis gave us an in-depth overview of the awards process and guided us through what judges look for in a print. Kaye, your experience and knowledge was invaluable to have at this meeting. Thank you for coming to Auckland and it was also an added privilege to accommodate you at the Traill residence. Hope I’ve turned you on to that Edmonds pancake mix.

PRO Report / Magazine of the NZIPP

REGIONAL UPDATES

Nelson/Marlborough Region Words by Sarah McGregor M.NZIPP

NZIPP Nelson Marlborough were very excited to welcome Wellington region members Catherine Cattanach and Mel Waite on Tuesday 2nd May. Catherine and Mel spent 3 hours wowing a full house with their stories of photography, printing, and iris awards. Catherine shared her knowledge on connecting with her subjects, and how to engage them to get certain expressions. She had so many great ideas to share and explain how they were made. We saw a variety of her award images as she talked us through the concepts, the shooting process, her planning of the images, through to the final image. She also showed us her setup and how she organised everything. It was a fascinating talk, which really had everyone captivated.

PRO Report / Magazine of the NZIPP

Mel was wonderful at sharing her printing knowledge with us. Small town Nelson does not offer much in the way of printing facilities, so we were all eager to hear Mel’s thoughts on being able to print yourself. We had a good run through of image printing, paper types and Mel’s thoughts on the printing process. I am sure there are plenty who attending who are eager to start printing for themselves now. We finished off with Mel talking through some of her Iris awarded images. Mel’s passion for capturing weddings is so evident in her talk and it absolutely resonates through her stunning images. If you ever get the chance to have these two amazing ladies speak in your region, make sure you attend. Thank you so much Catherine and Mel.

REGIONAL UPDATES

Wellington Region

Words by Catherine Cattanach F.NZIPP II

“It’s like a meal. Your steak’s perfect, your potatoes are perfect, but your salad’s a bit wilted.” The jury is out over whether Ian Rotherham wins Quote of the Day for that gem, delivered at the Wellington region’s annual “mock print judging” in late April. Hard on his heels is Mel Waite with this: “It has a slightly creepy, slightly dead look. But in a good way.” The mock judging is always a popular event in the run-up to the annual Iris Awards. Mandi Lynn put her hand up for organising it this year, and we had a good turnout and lots of valuable discussion. Kaye Davis kindly travelled down from Palmerston North to help out - she’s such a great judge, but obviously we don’t normally get to hear her comments because at Iris she’s busy behind the scenes as head of the Honours team. Some photographers put forward a group of similar images in order to get opinions on which was strongest, some submitted images they were unsure about to see whether they cut the mustard, while others brought ones they’re definitely planning to enter but which might be able to be improved before printing. Judging comments included tips on processing and paper choice, suggested crops, and advice on which category would be most appropriate (an important choice which is all too easy to get wrong!).

This from Terry: “A drilled hole in a Nikon Body cap was gaffer taped to a 1-litre chicken stock box (content used in Saturday night’s tea). The pinhole was made in a section of thin aluminium cut from a gin and tonic can (also consumed beforehand) and gaffer tapped onto a hole in the front of the carton. When I tried to fit the arrangement to my Nikon 800E the handgrip stuck out too much for the cartoon to sit well, so a toilet roll tube was used as an extension tube. After initial testing I found there was too much light bouncing around inside the carton. On slitting it open, I found that the inside was all silver! Covered inside with black gaffer tape and reassembled.” Thank you to Mel Waite for hosting, and also to Karolina Stus for doing a sterling job of organising all the prints and switching judges on and off the panel.

Naturally things can always go differently at the actual Iris awards but this event is a really great way to get a ballpark idea on whether an image is worth entering, and how to give it the best possible chance. Thanks to Nick Servian for taking most of these photographs. The camera that Terry was using stole most of the attention though - he made it out of a chicken stock box. He would like me to mention that, contrary to appearances, he has not gone soft in the head. Nor is he too poor to afford a lens: the day of the mock print judging was World Pinhole Camera Day. © Chris Hill

PRO Report / Magazine of the NZIPP

Â© Terry Wreford Hann

PRO Report / Magazine of the NZIPP

Â© Nick Servian

INFOCUS 2 017 WELLINGTON

IRIS AWARDS

DREAM BIG

EXPOSURE T HE NZ PHOTO SHOW

SHED 6, WELLINGTON EXPOSURE 15-18 JUNE IRIS AWARDS 15-17 JUNE INFOCUS 18-19 JUNE 2017

INFOCUS.ORG.NZ

SPONSORS

PRO Report / Magazine of the NZIPP

REGIONAL UPDATES

Canterbury / Westland Region Words by Juliette Capaldi

April was a busy month for Canterbury/Westland region. We started with our print critique night, where those who were after some feedback and ideas on their work entered up to 5 prints each. The panel was really great giving ideas on whether they felt the images would be worth entering the upcoming (very soon!) Iris Awards, and where improvements could be made. There were quite a few first time entrants in the room, and I am sure they learnt a lot, but also, I could feel the disappointment some of them must have felt when their work was put more in the professional standard category, rather than award winning. The highs and lows of another year of Iris starting again. Thank you so much to our panel members who gave up their time. We always hear afterwards that it is helpful. From print critique we just straight into the AGM. Now in the few years Kate Christie has been our Chairperson, we traditionally have a very short AGM....like very short. Last year it was around 6 minutes. But Kate must have wanted to go with a BANG (more about that in just sec), so she stretched it out to a whole 24 minutes. We will forgive her.

PRO Report / Magazine of the NZIPP

So, the big news from the AGM, is the resigning of our Chairperson, Kate Christie. Kate has been in the role a few years, and has done a brilliant job. She is so full of life, energy and enthusiasm, and she brought that and more to the Canterbury/Westland region. She is always dedicated, switched on to what is going on, and friendly to newcomers. (Have you heard the story of one newcomer, who on her first visit to a NZIPP meeting, managed to go up to Kate and say “Hi, I’m Kate”, when her name wasn’t Kate.) Kate of course took it in her stride, and carried on. Kate – everyone in the Canterbury/Westland region really appreciates all the time and energy you put into NZIPP these last few years. Thank you. So at our the AGM....we found a new regional chair.... drum role here....Craig Bullock. Craig is fairly new to NZIPP, but not to photography, and has great passion and enthusiasm. I know he will take the role in his stride, and we are looking forward to you leading the region. Lastly, we were one of the lucky regions to have Harry Jensen visiting, and we really enjoyed his presentation. It was interesting to hear what originally inspired Harry, the early years when he was not allowed to shoot a single frame over 9 rolls (12 shots per role) for weddings, and his belief “You have to stick to what you believe in your heart”. Thanks for taking the time to present to us Harry.

PRO Report / Magazine of the NZIPP

REGIONAL UPDATES

Otago / Southland Region Words by Nicola Wilhelmson F.NZIPP

In April we were lucky enough to have Harry Janssen visit our region along with the Canterbury region. I asked Harry to visit for my own selfish reasons, I love his work and always look forward to seeing what he comes up with every year at the Iris awards. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s great to see that your creative style is being appreciated and requested by the commercial industry. Harry has been in this photography game for quite some time and told us about his countless hours being locked away in a darkroom.

He began creatively processing and manipulating his images long before digital photography and Photoshop. When Photoshop was introduced he jumped straight in and put in the hours to really learn the program, pushing those sliders right to the end! A big thank you to Harry for sharing your journey with us. Also thank you to Simone for looking after Harry while he was here and taking him around the sights in Dunedin. Was great to have you down south Harry! Thanks so much.

ÂŠ Nicola Wilhelmson

PRO Report / Magazine of the NZIPP

REGIONAL UPDATES

Waikato / BOP Region Words by Jacki Key

The 11th of April was Bay of Plenty / Waikato’s General Elections for the region where a chairperson, secretary, treasurer, and three committee members were voted for, bringing us a team with some new faces to represent our district.

Following the formalities a Pechakucha night was enjoyed. For those of you wondering - Pechakucha is 20 images for 20 seconds accompanied by the photographer giving a brief overview of each image. It’s a great way to share work whether it’s assigned, project based, or personal. We had an inspiring selection of presentations:

Chairperson: Marama Shearer Secretary: Sheree Kershaw Treasurer: Tracey Scott Committee: Alana Dresner, Jacki Key, Myra Bayly

Ruth Gilmore; on the funny side of being a wedding and portrait photographer Jacki Key; portraits of Rajasthan Ross Clayton; on being a medical photographer Brain Holdens; life of growing up to become photographer / pilot / musician (what an interesting life!) Sheree Kershaw; photographing her children Tracey Scott with an absolutely beautiful renovation project. There was a very diverse range of subjects showing how different people in the same industry can be, and it’s always interesting to see what other people are doing.

PRO Report / Magazine of the NZIPP

PER FEC TI ON

#LEICANZ

NEW

LEICA M10 The Camera.

Discover how we have once again redefined our devotion to quality and perfect craftsmanship. 60 years of rangefinder expertise, 11 years of digital M-Camera development, and invaluable feedback from dedicated M-Photographers have inspired us to create the slimmest digital M of all time: the Leica M10. With an improved rangefinder, increased performance, and now featuring an ISO setting dial on the top plate, this latest addition to the Leica M-System – the world’s most compact, full-frame digital camera system – embodies the essence of M-Photography. LEICA M-SYSTEM. Inspiration Sehen. Find out more at your local Leica Retailer: Progear // Photo Warehouse

PRO Report / Magazine of the NZIPP

MEMBER PROFILE

Alan Dove

Accredited Photographer www.dovephotography.co.nz

I’ve been a full-time professional photographer working from my own studio for 20 years now. I worked part-time for a few years before that as an in-house photographer for a graphic design firm in Dunedin. Before that I’d been taking photos off and on since high school. I’ve always loved the arts so my interest to photograph came out of that and reading lot of National Geographic Mags. Travel sparked my interest in taking photos too. I simply call my business Alan Dove Photography. I started out with weddings, commercial, graduations and a little family portrait work. Now I focus just on family portraits and commercial work which includes corporate and editorial portraiture, architectural, industrial, fashion, art-copying, product photography, and finally event & PR photography. So pretty varied really which in a small town like Dunedin is necessary. I don’t go with the theory that you should specialise in out industry. You’ve either got the eye or not. Having said that I’m very happy to stay well away from schools, balls, weddings and team photography. My website is a critical marketing platform and try to keep it ranked fairly high SEO-wise. For family portraiture I’ve found third-party marketing to be really successful if done right. I send out monthly e-portfolios to a database of about 2000 addresses. Despite being slightly cynical of the overall usefulness of social media I do use Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram. Still, nothing seems to beat picking up the phone and talking to other humans especially when work’s a bit slow. I’ve never advertised in magazines, nor do I participate in expos. I have in the past but to be honest they’re weren’t my thing.

PRO Report / Magazine of the NZIPP

Being a successful professional photographer is about getting the basic foundations right really. They are reliability, friendliness, promptness (of delivery of work), honesty and just trying to be as good as you can. Longevity is underrated people, in Dunedin at least like to know your solid and going to be around for a while. My shooting style can vary a lot depending on the job. It can be ‘fly on the wall’ photo-journalistic for some jobs, classic or formal for others. Some of the work I do is less creative and more technical like the art-copying and some product photography. For example wine bottles are quite a challenge to photograph really well. For my portrait work my ‘style’ is big on interacting with my subjects, working with them until they start to relax and then pose people so they look natural and not over directed by a photographer. After a while people fall into natural poses that look great and uncontrived. One of my favourite and therefore memorable shoots has been for two start-up labels called Red Papaya and Firefly. Great clothes, models, client and location. Alas the labels are no more. Fashion is a super tough industry, perhaps even tougher than photography… Actually my first ever proper commercial shoot involved hanging below the Auckland harbour bridge in the painter cages to photograph the bridge which was kind of exciting. Favourite image I’ve shot recently? Well, there’s lots I could choose from but one that stands out is a simple personal image I took recently while out on a ride of a small yacht called Oslo (Front cover image). The boat was out of the tide, sitting on the mudflats of Otago Harbour, bathed in the most beautiful light at dusk. The boat projected a sublime sense of self-worth, pride and freedom despite being caught with it’s pants down out of the water.

I’m a Nikon user mainly and love my D800, D3 cameras. I still use my D2X which is fine for head shots in the studio. I also use a fully mechanical Hasselblad with a P25 Phase One back. It has its uses for sure, but with no autofocus I tend to use it just on stationery subjects such as when I’m asked to copy artwork for artist or galleries. If I haven’t been a photographer I would have liked to have been a soundtrack musician creating and recording original scores for film and TV. I’ve recently discovered the joy of creating music with Garageband and have decided to start creating my own background music, or soundscapes for exhibitions such as when I entered the Dunedin Fringe Festival earlier this year. My advice for aspiring photographers is unless you’re really not very good at photography or communicating with people, try not to give up at the start. Expecting short-term success is your enemy, because this is a longhaul business that you’re setting up. Everything worth doing always takes longer then you want or imagine. There will be many years of toiling on minimal income initially but sooner or later as your creative, technical and business skills improve you’ll get noticed.

Actively learn the business of being a professional photographer. Learn from other photographers, join the NZIPP and/or the AIPA. Be nice, clients love nice, down to earth people. Pushing yourself is obviously good but don’t be too proud to say ‘no’ to job if it isn’t you or beyond your skill-set. Your client won’t think anything less of you and if anything will see you as being professional. Lastly get your head around image usage and licensing. While it’s all about “copyright”, try not to use that word around clients because it’s misunderstood and people can freak and feel like they won’t have control. Instead find out where the client needs to use the images and for how long and then negotiate a value for your skills based on their image usage needs. Easy once you get the language right.

30 © Alan Dove

PRO Report / Magazine of the NZIPP

32 © Alan Dove

PRO Report / Magazine of the NZIPP

33 © Alan Dove

34 © Alan Dove

PRO Report / Magazine of the NZIPP

WHAT’S IN MY BAG

Heidi Horton

Accredited Photographer www.heidihortonphotography.co.nz

Hi, I’m Heidi! I’m a portrait and wedding photographer based in Riversdale, Southland. My photography story is probably not like most. I’m actually an accountant that gave up her day job to follow a passion in photography. Six years ago I started getting really interested in portrait photography. It began simply as a hobby, in fact I didn’t even invest in a decent SLR camera to begin with as I assumed photography might become just another one of my un-finished, forgotten about hobbies; like the painting, the sewing and scrapbooking had! But photography stuck and I soon became obsessed with it. What I love most about being a photographer is the people I meet & make connections with. I love capturing genuine emotions and moments. My favourite images are filled with laughter, joy and happiness. I’m also a sucker for pretty wedding details! Fast-forward to today…I am now proud to be an accredited member of the NZIPP and a full-time photographer getting to do what I love for a living. I can’t imagine doing anything else anymore. These days my gear is far more comprehensive than the camera I first started with. And my business also includes my husband, Matt. We work as a husband and wife team on wedding days so I guess it’s more of a “What’s in Our Bags”. We both shoot on Canon 5d Mark 3 bodies and while I could list off every single piece of equipment in our kit I’ll stick to the lenses we use & why we love them. On a wedding day in Matt’s bag you’ll find a Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 and a Canon 24-105mm f/4 lens. He also uses the Canon 100mm f/2.8 macro lens for detail shots. But most of the day the 70-200mm is the lens that lives on his camera. With this he captures a lot of candid perspectives and also tighter compositions during portrait time while I am shooting wider.

PRO Report / Magazine of the NZIPP

In my bag you’ll find the following lenses: the Sigma ART 35mm f/1.4, Sigma ART 50mm f/1.4 and the most recent addition of the Sigma ART 85mm f/1.4 lens. In fact the only Canon lens I use on a wedding day now is the 100mm macro which I do love for shooting wedding details such as the rings in that larger than life perspective. A few years ago I discovered the Sigma ART series when I first bought the 35mm lens after much research. I fell in love with the results I got and have slowly traded in my Canon primes for Sigma’s. While the 85mm has taken a bit of getting used to (it weighs in at over 1kg!) it has become my favourite lens & focal length. I love the prime lenses for their wide apertures and I find that I think more about my composition when using primes, moving more with my feet, than just zooming the lens in or out. I’ve developed a process to the way I shoot weddings that suits my prime lens line-up. While we shoot weddings as a team, I shoot portraits alone and my lens line-up varies for these. At the moment when I’m heading to portrait shoots my camera bag has the following lenses in it; Sigma ART 35mm f/1.4, Sigma ART 50mm f/1.4 and the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8. Even though I just said how much I love prime lenses, I find myself shooting most of a family portrait session with just the Canon 70-200mm - I love the lens compression & it’s so good for photographing children on the move! When I was starting out in photography someone gave me this piece of advice when it came to gear; rather than going out and spending money on gear you think you want or need, experiment first with minimal gear and you will soon find what you are missing. Begin building from there. This advice has served me well. Each piece of our gear has it’s purpose and I’ve never spent money on a lens that has just ended up collecting dust in my bag. Naturally there’s always more I’d love to add to my gear list and I am sure what’s in my bag will continue to evolve as I do myself as a photographer.

PRO Report / Magazine of the NZIPP

“ ”

I love capturing genuine emotions and moments. My favourite images are filled with laughter, joy and happiness. - Heidi Horton

PRO Report / Magazine of the NZIPP

GET CLICKING

click here to join the iris awards Q & A Facebook group Musings, ponderings, and thoughts ... questions, analysis, info and advice ... all related to the NZIPP Iris Awards.

click here to subscribe to PRO REPORT

Not receiving the NZIPP PRO Report to your inbox every month? Want to keep in-touch with happenings in New Zealandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s photographic industry and the NZIPP?

click here to find an NZIPP PHOTOGRAPHER

Visit the following link to search our NZIPP recommended photographers.

PRO Report / Magazine of the NZIPP

NZIPP SPONSORS

A special thank you to our sponsors for their continuing support:

PRO Report / Magazine of the NZIPP