(Written by Melissa Wood & Katrina Ferguson. Photos by Melissa Wood.)
On September 3rd 2019 we hosted a post APPA celebration night for our fellow Victorians who weren’t able to join us in-person at the awards in Sydney back in August.
Many of those who were at the national awards also attended this post-event celebration, held in the upstairs function room at Malvern East’s Racecourse Hotel.
We enjoyed a delicious dinner and toasted our talented pool of Victorian residing photographers.
A number of our members received their associates and masters ribbons, and some came away with coveted gold bars.
After acknowledging these achievements, we had eight Victorian members share details of their awards journey with us.
The evening’s speakers included Vic council member, mentor advocate and two-time gold award recipient at this year’s APPA, Fiona Handbury, and long-standing APPA event team member and 2018 co-Claude McCarthy Award recipient, Katrina Ferguson.
Katrina detailed the benefits of attending print critique nights throughout the awards season. Despite doing so, she unfortunately missed out on achieving her masters in 2019 by one elusive point.
Newly awarded Honorary Fellow, Craig Wetjen, addressed the room with an overarching message on mental health and was contrasted beautifully by talented student member, Susan Brunialti, still flying high after her informal induction into the gold award ‘club.’
Deserving 2019 APPA category winners, Damien Bowerman (Portrait PPY), and Belinda Richards (Pet PPY) shared insight into each of their winning portfolios and careers in general.
This year’s win was long-awaited for Damien who has impressively been a runner-up in his category some five times prior.
For Belinda, the Pet Photographer of the Year title wasn’t new.
She also won the category at the Victorian State awards. These impressive wins adding to her 2018 APPA title of Emerging Photographer of the Year.
Back-to-back-to-back Album of the Year Photographer, Eric Ronald, took us through the details of one of his signature international wedding commissions, peppered with personal insights.
He invited event guests to thumb through some of his award-winning albums at their leisure throughout the course of the evening.
APPA 2019’s Ilford Trophy (for the highest scoring print) was won by Victorian, Mandarine Montgomery, who finished off the evening with an insightful look at and discussion around her creative interpretation of what could be called ‘climate cancer,’ specifically the brutality of drought.
Thank you to those who joined our local post APPA celebration. It was a pleasure to meet in-person and trade stories about the awards season and life in general beyond.
Many thanks to the event’s speakers for their time and willingness to share insights into their careers and various awards journeys.
We look forward to meeting as a community again at the next one.
Best of luck, well in advance, for the 2020 awards season.