QCCP Newsletter July2011

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QCCP

July 2011

Newsletter

Australian AIPP Photo awards and The PMA held in Sydney 24-27 June NZIPP Iris Awards & conference- Rotorua 5-7 August Workshop reports and links.

Upcoming Landscape Photography workshops, Mt Cook -August and West Coast-September

Hello to all the new photographers that have joined our Newsletter, please read on and then explore the links. Our aim is share our own photographic experiences in the hope to inspire you to come and share these experiences in person with us.

In recent events I have had the opportunity to answer questions from many emerging and beginner photographers. A regular question was; ‘How do I know I am good enough? And how can I be a success?

Both these questions sounded to me as through these people were is fact saying "I am not happy, perhaps if I am successful I will be happy or if I make a better photograph I will be happy". My answer to this is to find happiness by ‘living in the moment’. The process of making images is a great way to connect with your creative self and 'be' in the moment. The idea is to let go of doubt and start believing in yourself. To do! simple because you can and be comfortable in whatever the results of ’doing’ are. The process requires the release of judgement and the acceptance and appreciation of NOW. This should lead to a life that is more satisfying and meaningful because it's an ongoing process that is constantly evolving.

Mike and myself endeavour to photograph ‘in the moment’ with mindful awareness of what we are trying to say with our images and how we feel about the subject we are photographing.

We do this by shooting jpegs alongside our raw files. The jpegs are processed by the camera ‘at the time of shooting’ and allow us to more fully experience the photographic moment as it occurs and in combination with live live, we can even pre-visualize this before the photographic exposure.

Last week in Sydney we entered Photographic prints into the Australian Institute of Professional photography Awards, sponsored by Canon. We were also a part of the judging team. (Of course.. we can’t judge our own work or the work of our spouses). Four im-

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ages can be entered. Mike was awarded two Silver with Distinction and two Silver awards and won “Travel Photographer of the Year”. I was awarded one Gold, one Silver Distinction and two Silver awards, received another Bar to my Master of Photography and was second in the Landscape category.

See below; Mike’s entry-images from our trip to Myanmar last year.

How does this make us feel? Satisfied ?

Yes for the short term.

What makes us content is to be able to keep making images we love and to share them to our Photographic community.

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Values are not the same as goals.

Values stay with us for our whole life, they are the things that we decide really matter and give our lives meaning. Photography to me is a value. I give value to the constant observance of life and the willingness and motivation to record it. I also give value to teaching and sharing my knowledge.

We all have our own values, what’s important to you? What do you care about? What do you want to work towards?

Goals on the other hand are made, then once achieved are crossed off and other goals are set.

It’s an ongoing cycle. In our Professional Photography Institutes we can earn points by entering images into the Award system, in this way we can earn a level of achievement and call ourselves “Master Photographers” . That is why we have Bars to our Master’s of Photography, it’s like receiving your Master’s all over again. Once you have done it five times and have in the process won a certain amount of Gold awards you can call your self a Grand Master of Photography.

I asked Mike about how he felt about Winning AIPP Travel Photographer of the Year and about entering competitions.

“For me entering the awards on both sides of the Tasman is a great way to sign off on a body of work (in this case four images from Myanmar). Last year I submitted these same images over two categories in New Zealand and achieved moderate success in both categories coming runner up in one.

I learn’t from that experience and put the four strongest images together in one category and ended up winning in Australia. Even though the win is a great thing to achieve, the more important thing for me is that I was able to achieve a strong body of images that worked together and put the work in third place for Australian Photographer of the Year. None of them achieved gold awards but collectively they achieved more.

Both Jackie & I always choose images that we like first and forget about playing the judging game of just putting in images that we think will win gold. If we like them then they are already gold to us and that’s the most import thing to remember. We should all make images for ourselves first and then just let them go and see how they fare. Some people love them and equally some aren’t moved by them – so you can’t have expectations outside of your own thoughts. If you love them then at least they have a chance.

I’m a photographer because I love it and that feeling is then able to flow through my work. If you don’t love it then don’t do it.

My ultimate goal is to make great images that can last the test of time not just awards. In order to assess that I will just have to wait and see’.

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Jackie’s Gold award is below. We both had large displays of our images, as part of the Canon EOS Masters display at PMA-Darling Harbour, Sydney.

Our ‘Creative Field guide to Landscape

Photography’ book has won a Gold Award at this Year Australian Institute of Professional Photography Image awards.

The judges only had positive comments about the book awarding it score of 90. If you would like to order a copy, please send me an email with your address. I will then organize payment and postage.

Kinloch Landscape workshop- May This was our seventh year at Kinloch (40 minutes drive from Queenstown) once again it produced some really great images. The workshop starts on the Thursday evening allowing us a full day to travel through to Kinloch Lodge. See the book here.

Rotorua Volcanic Landscape Workshop-June The Rotorua Landscape workshop held last month was a great success regardless of the fact that the seas were too rough for us to travel to White Island. This gave us more time to explore the local volcanic parks. Mike seems to be able to cast a spell over the rain. We only brought out the umbrellas for the occasional sprinkle. Then once we were back in the cars the rain fell. The damp conditions helps to enhance the rich colours in the volcanic landscape, much like how wetting a rock brings out it’s colours. The soft, low contrast light made the atmosphere wonderfully mysterious. See the edit here at this link.

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Kinloch Landscape workshop- May 2011Mike Langford, Rose Marie Burns, Jackie Ranken, Thomas Jensen, Annalie Viloen, Daryn Morgan, Brian Eastwood and Ray Clifton.

Rotorua Volcanic Landscape Workshop-June 2011 Jackie Ranken (tutor), Paula Whiteacre, Lorraine Milne, Mike Langford (tutor), Kerry Dean, Sarah Timmings and Kath Bodley.

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Upcoming workshops - Places still available July 29-August 1 Winter Landscape - Aoraki Mount Cook $1130 September 23-27 West Coast - Hasst to Franz Josef $2160 October 13-18 Fiordland - Doubtful Sound $3100 October 28-31 Portraiture - Queenstown $980 FULL

Our favourite place to show images is on the walls of our home. If you are ever in Queenstown come and drop in for a coee. Just let us know at info@qccp.co.nz or phone us +64 (0) 34090272.

We use our home/studio as a base for the Autumn Colours workshops, the Portrait workshop and as a starting and finishing spot for the Kinloch, Winter, West Coast and Fiordland Photography Workshops.

We have finally updated our http://www.qccp.co.nz web site.

For news flashes, become a friend on http://www.facebook.com/QCCP.PhotoWorkshops Find videos at http://www.youtube.com/jackieqccp We are always trying to improve our communication with you and want to keep in contact. Please let us know what’s going on in your photographic life so we can share it amongst our qccp.co.nz network on facebook.

QCCP Workshops for 2012 March

FotoFreo.com Fremantle WA

April 13-16 Autumn Colours I - Queenstown $1200 April 22-25 Autumn Colours II - Queenstown $1200 May 18-21 Kinloch-at the head of Lake Wakatipu $1740 Please send me an e-mail if you want more information or want to book into any of our workshops. As always, the groups are cohesively small in size which ensures quality time spent with everyone and the group has a chance to really get to know one another. More info. at www.qccp.co.nz