PSNZ Judge Accreditation Panel Update

By Caroline Ludford LPSNZ LRPS, Panel Chairperson

Shona Jaray APSNZ, who has been on the PSNZ Judge Accreditation Panel both as chairperson and panel member, has stood down from that role. She will continue as the main presenter for the Judge Training weekends and is looking forward to meeting prospective trainees in the coming months.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank Shona for her many years of hard work and dedication to the Judge Accreditation Panel.

The panel now consists of the following people:

Annette Johnston FPSNZ is the latest person to join the panel.

“I have been an apprentice photographer now for a little over ten years. I say apprentice as the more I think I am learning, the sheer magnitude of the things still to learn keeps growing.”

Throughout this journey the evaluation process in Annette’s local camera club, Tauranga Photographic Society, has been her training ground. The challenge and discipline of meeting monthly submissions, followed by the informed evaluation received from experienced and qualified PSNZ accredited assessors, has been invaluable.

It is Annette’s hope that in being part of the Judges Accreditation Panel, she can encourage and support other photographers to become part of, and comfortable in, their roles as photographic assessors dedicated to providing informed and encouraging critique to photographic club members throughout New Zealand.

Paul Byrne FPSNZ AFAIP ARPS has been a member of the Tauranga Photographic Society since 2008. He is a PSNZ accredited judge and frequently evaluates club competitions. He was also one of the judges for the Laurie Thomas Competition in 2015 and the Natex Exhibition in 2016.

2016 was a great year for Paul. In January he achieved recognition from the Federation Internationale de L’Art Photographique [FIAP] when he was awarded an Associateship. In May, he was awarded an Associateship from PSNZ for his humorous panel of caricature prints. In 2018 Paul was awarded a Fellowship of the Society for his panel of monochrome images which depicted the lives of Cambodians. He enjoys making short AVs and has been one of the judges of the Tauranga AV Competition for the many years.

Paul is an Associate member of the Royal Photographic Society and contributes to their Documentary Group. He was appointed to the PSNZ Honours Board in 2020. His photographic passions are portraiture, street photography, action (particularly rally sport) and documentary.

John Reid APSNZ ANPSNZ AFIAP

In the 1980s John’s passion for photography developed when he started working in Westland National Park as a Ranger. “I was working and playing in an incredible environment, big mountains, amazing light; and photography gave me the format to capture some of these scenes forever.”

John lives in Greymouth and is currently working for the Department of Conservation, based in Hokitika. He is a member of the Photographic Society of New Zealand and the Nature Photographic Society of New Zealand.

John enjoys landscape, macro, wildlife and photojournalism photography. A highlight of John’s photographic career has been to photograph wildlife in Botswana, in different parts of the Okavango Delta, in 2014. This was followed by a second trip to the African continent in 2016, visiting Namibia and photographing wildlife, landscapes and some of the Namibian culture. John has been a PSNZ accredited judge for a number of years and judges in the Open and Nature categories.

Annette Paul John Newell

Newell Grenfell Hon PSNZ FPSNZ FNPSNZ

Newell grew up surrounded by photography. His Kiwi father was a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society and a popular judge in the UK. Newell has been entering (and enjoying) photographic competitions for around 60 years. After returning to New Zealand in 1977 he gained his PSNZ Fellowship in 1994 and was on the PSNZ Honours Board for 12 years, succeeding Matheson Beaumont as chair in 2005. He has been president and patron of the Christchurch Photographic Society (CPS) and is a life member of both CPS and PSNZ.

Caroline Ludford LPSNZ LRPS took over as chairperson of the panel in 2020. Her passion is bird, wildlife and landscape photography, although she loves to learn new genres. She has been an accredited PSNZ judge for a few years and enjoys the variety of images that she assesses from many clubs around the country. She is a member of the Kapiti Coast Photographic Society and looks forward to welcoming some new trainees to the Judge Accreditation scheme.

Ian Walls FPSNZ became an accredited judge in 2014 and has regularly judged at both club level and for salons and exhibitions. He joined the judge accreditation panel in 2016.

He has always been uncomfortable with the way photographic organisations tend to emphasise competition. For him, ‘competitive art’ makes little sense.

“That said, the advantage of frequent competitions is that club members regularly have their work critiqued. When handled well this sort of critique gives a developing artist an understanding of how their work is perceived and can lead to rapid improvement of their image making.

“This is where the judge accreditation programme comes into the picture. New judges are trained and encouraged to make sympathetic and thoughtful comments that encourage improvement to photographic technique and vision.”

Jenny Dey APSNZ is secretary of the panel. She worked in the photographic industry for over 25 years. For the last 10 years of her career, she worked at Imagelab in Wellington, managing an online image management software application.

Recreational photography has been a lifelong interest and she has been active in the broader photographic community. She is a Life Member of the Wellington Photographic Society and was on PSNZ Council from 2007 until 2015, managing the Sponsorship Portfolio.

Jenny has exhibited her photographs in solo and group exhibitions.

Caroline Ian Jenny