In conjunction with the West Australian branch of the Australian Institute of Professional Photography we will be presenting a personal insight into our photography, our business, our development, our philosophy and our albums. We want to inspire, provoke and encourage other photographers to best themselves.

This is a unique opportunity for us to speak in tandem. We never do this. Its easy as photographers to become self centered so having the two of us creates a balance of 'selves'. We want this to be interactive and informative. Its two days on growing, surviving, nurturing, and why coffee is important.

We have nothing to sell but so much to give. We have won too many awards to worry about, we have shot in many amazing places, but when it comes down to the everyday truth of being a photographer for the people, we are singly most motivated by striving to give our best to the ones who gave us the trust to be their photographer.

We look forward to seeing you in Perth

Johannes Jo and Ida

It is still sinking in. Ian Baugh from Queensberry contacted me this evening with this picture and his congratulations from Las Vegas.

This is our trophy!

I want to thank Queensberry and my beautiful wife Jo Grams for all their support.

I also need to thank Virginia and Richard the beautiful bride and groom.

see also this award

One of the truly special gifts was a book called a Welcome to the Zoo by Alison Jay.

It is a wordless story book. Alison's work is rich with stories within stories, intriguing personalities, and beautiful imagery.

The thing that struck me the most was the unspoken freedom I had to create my own stories. This is partly due to the lack of words but more-so to the rich content of the illustrations.

Albums can be like this.  In fact they should be!   We want our albums to tell many stories  so that they will endure time and fashion to become the catalyst for many memories but still be personal to the viewer.

Cheers

Johannes

Last night we were awarded Wedding Album of the Year at the New Zealand Institute of Professional Photography's annual award ceremony. It was a convincing win receiving a Gold with Distinction from the judges.

We have won this title every year it has been awarded (3 times).

I see myself as a storyteller.

I wanted to create a book that was like a personal and intimate journal.
I wanted to tell a story in a less than obvious way
I wanted the book to say these things before you even opened it.
I referred to the feel of the album as being similar to your old, comfortably worn couch.
This couch is the one where you sit in the sun and read while listening to the music that moves you. It gives you comfort and has a reality, almost a wisdom, about it that comes from years of being a couch.
I wanted the viewer to feel an honesty and a beauty when they held this amazing book.
I wanted it to suggest a quality that said way more than a bunch of photographs on a page.
This album wanted to be suggestive of a rich reward to anybody who had the privilege to hold it, and the curiosity to look inside
You could argue ‘but its just a book of pictures.’
In one sense you might be right, but the truth is that it is somebody’s dream that we have retold. Dreams are worth more than that.

I was very fortunate that my needs coincided with something that Heather Baugh from Queensberry was working on as part of a series of unique bespoke albums. Queensberry have just gone through a major exercise in redefining themselves.

The images were simple narratives of a day in the life of two beautiful people.

I am so lucky to share that day with people and put it somewhere safe for them to go back to one day.

cover

Wedding album of the year

Weding album of the year opening 4

If you are looking at an album now is the best time to get it made.

The thing about photographing weddings is that the photography is just the beginning of the creation of the story.

This is where we get to flex our creative muscles and finish telling the stories.

This is a great achievement for us at Moda Fotografica. But especially for me it is wonderful to get the recognition of my work by my respected peers.

Earlier this Year I won the NZIPP Wedding Album of the Year award for the second year in a row.

First page for wedding album award

As a Wedding Photographer I am also a story teller.   This is what makes an album such a wonderful way to bring the parts of a wedding together.

Wedding Photography in New Zealand is up there with the rest of the world.   I read a wonderful piece about New Zealand by a guy called Kevin Roberts, the author of "Lovemarks".    He spoke of the independent momentum of New Zealand as a small isolated identity.   An environment very well suited to freespirited change, more flexible than countries with larger populations that were affected by the inertia of a resistance to change cause by size and mass.

To this end wedding albums should be independent designs that reflect the subject matter, as well as the personal style of the Photographer.    Not the Photographer's style as seen through the images of somebody else's wedding.

I feel strongly about the poetry and rhythm of an album and try to pace the presentation of images to allow for the natural flow of the story being told.    The same would apply for a portrait album.    The story must be as strong as the photographs.

Sometimes there will be pages with many images, but they will always be near quieter spaces.   There is a flow that feels right.  What I am trying to say is that the album should read well and not be cluttered.

Both years the albums were for brides who were reluctant about photography.   I think this helped me because in each case I was encouraged to look at the entire wedding as a story.   The final albums were made as Queensberry Duos and designed with album design software called Photojunction.

Some photographers say that I shouldn't be allowed to enter next year ... I'm still thinking about it.

In the beginning there was a photograph

Funny the wheels that are set in motion by the smallest of incidents.

The “butterfly effect” is the major impact of the smallest incident on a future event or occurrence.  Some people argue about inevitability… I prefer fate.

You could say that it started from my being a poor fledgling photographer who couldn’t afford a big fancy tripod.

You could argue that maybe I didn’t fully understand the importance of having equipment that worked on more than a wing and a prayer.  My tripod was flimsy and what I lacked in experience I made up for in enthusiasm.

I was photographing my first real wedding in a small country town in Western Australia.  Many things happened at this wedding including the fan-belt breaking on my lilac Renault 12 with its paisley vinyl roof.

I digress.

Moda Fotografica Studio

It was the middle of the service and I was photographing near the altar.  I set my tripod up to photograph the bridesmaids, who were seated during a reading.

My flimsy tripod buckled under the weight of my Canon F1.

The camera ended up pointing at the bridesmaids’ feet.  I looked through the lens and thought it looked interesting enough to warrant recomposing and shooting (this was in the days of film, when every shot mattered).  I took the shot and carried on with my day.

When I returned to New Zealand I entered the image into the 1993 NZIPP awards. It got people’s attention and scored a gold. It’s still on the wall at Moda Fotografica, the studio I share with my wife Jo Grams.

Suddenly I had people telling me I needed to charge more for my weddings. I wish I’d listened. I was charging a nominal fee, a fee that I myself would have felt comfortable to pay.

But my comfort level, as a struggling new photographer, was different to that of my clients… a difficult thing for me to understand.   It took me a long time to gain the confidence to make the numbers bigger.

This one success brought out of me the need to do better. More importantly, the image caught the eye of Ian and Heather from Queensberry.  The most significant thing about this initial “connection” with Queensberry was that they had something that I wanted.   I just didn’t realise that I actually wanted it.

What was great about that first meeting was their amazing enthusiasm.   It was the beginning of a dialogue, a glimpse into a new way of doing business.  It involved a wonderful combination of personal and professional.

There was a constant battle with them… They kept saying to me, “Let us do the work for you.”

The creative soul in me struggled to let go.

I still have them saying this to me, but now I understand better the benefit of letting go.   They were trying to give me freedom.

And now that I have been in business for almost twenty years the craving for freedom has overtaken the urge to have a creative monopoly.   I still have as much creative influence as I need, but I have the choice of trusting somebody else to do the work for me.

Victorian Bound Queensberry album

A relationship was begun. I started buying the original Victorian Bound albums…

Album design then was laying pictures out on pages four to a side.   With time I advanced to pin-hinge pagemounted albums…

2007 New Zealand Wedding Album of the Year

I had a notion that I wanted to produce works of art, and often would ask Heather for things that would present my images in a way that was simple and personal.

I wouldn’t have said that I was a big client for them, but that was my lack of sales skills more than anything.

I would plan my albums on bits of messy paper. Somehow they made sense of them to create my albums for me.   Now we have album planning software and tools to help us sell. Through Photojunction we are better able to visually communicate our intentions to our clients.

It’s so much easier to demonstrate the possibilities without having to ask our clients to use their imagination.

It’s weird when clients compliment me on the software that I’m using, almost as if I had created it.

I tell them I wish I had, but pass credit to the authors (thank you Danny et al)

This 14x10 Duo won NZIPP Wedding Album of the Year in 200

Detail from 2008 Wedding Album of the year

All of this was possible by the conversations that I was able to have through what became a personal involvement with Queensberry.   They earned my loyalty by being reliable, helpful, and appreciative. They invited me to speak at conferences on their behalf.   I felt honoured to be asked, but probably most challenging of all was the request for a family portrait.

I was VERY worried … these people had access to the best photographers in the world …  How could I meet their expectations?  My wife Jo and I did the shoot one afternoon.

I created a slideshow of the work and sent it through.  The most wonderful thing to me was the number of times I was able to make Sonya cry whenever she watched it.   For me this was the moment where we had done the right thing.   It wasn’t about being amazingly creative … it was about touching somebody with emotion – the business we’re in.

I feel privileged to be part of Queensberry.

Would this have happened without the flimsy tripod?   I would like to suggest that it was going to happen regardless. It was going to happen because it was not just a coincidence,  it was fate.

And that’s why I’m a Queensberry partisan.

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