We have our fingers and toes crossed for this years AOP awards! The print is in head office along with all of the several other photographer’s entries whom Helen is facing! As a member of the AOP Helen tries to support the association where possible and the awards program is one way to do this. Plus it is one of the most highly regarded photography awards in the industry.

The second round means they get to look at the print in flesh, and thanks to The Printspace using Canson Baryta paper Helen had a 60x50cm print shipped straight to the AOP’s London head office.

We don’t know yet when the finalists will be announced, but what it means if it gets this far is a place in this years awards exhibition to be held in a London gallery later this year as well as a page in the prestigious awards book sent out to many agencies and clients looking for fresh and established talent.

We’ll keep you posted and here’s her entry taken from a temple look out site in Kathmandu, Nepal.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0, processed in Lightroom 4 and photoshop)

Helen recently submitted two photographs from our Notworkrelated travels into the AOP’s winter online exhibition. This year the exhibition is titled ‘Elements’ and will run until the 15th January 2013. The brief was fairly open with the main theme being ‘elements’ interpreting this in whichever way we wanted to. It didn’t matter what time of the year it was taken, it could be a more abstract interpretation or something more literal. 26 photographers have been accepted into the exhibition and there is a really lovely body of work which is also on offer in limited edition print form.

Helen’s submission included two photographs taken whilst we were trekking in Nepal. ‘Rest’ was shot whilst we were on an acclimatisation work from Namche Bazaar to Thame. The weather closed in when we arrived and it was a beautiful site to see the village engulfed with snow. There was so much to draw us in photographically and the impact or The Sunshine Lodge covered in a light dusting of snow had to be documented.

The second image titled ‘Friends’ was taken whilst we were having more acclimatisation time higher up in the Gokyo valley at Dole. This was at around 4000m and there isn’t much to do once you arrive in these villages other than to recover, rest and acclimatise. Our great friends Joshua and Amata traveled with us for most of our trek and this was a very memorable thing that we did; all wrapped up warm in many layers, blankets, hats and gloves before the fire would be lit. We both love this image as it conveys such a lovely message of companionship to us and humour to others.

‘Rest’ has also been selected as the offical AOP Christmas card for 2012 much to our delight and Helen will be attending the exhibition launch and AOP Christmas social on the 18th December. What a lovely end to 2012!

We wish you all a wonderful Christmas, this is our first back on English soil for 2 years! Looking forward to 2013 and what it will offer!

Thanks for following!

You can see more of what we are up to by having a little peak at the following:

Helen’s portfolio
David’s portfolio
Notworkrelated Shop

Shooting for the Creative Marketplace is the preferred used term for shooting stock photography according to Commercial Photography Consultant Zoe Whishaw. Before I moved away from Leicester I attended a seminar led by Zoe at the AOP Gallery in London. I decided to attend the seminar as shooting for stock is something that Dave & I are interested in whilst we travel along & soak up what we see. I guess it’s a way that we can hopefully make some money back on the trip, but also a new challenge from a photography point of view…shooting with an idea in mind, perhaps thinking about how some of our imagery can be used in this “creative market place”.

Along with other AOP members & a few non-members I went with open ears & mind to see whether I could go away feeling inspired & with a fresh approach to shooting for stock. I knew the seminar wasn’t going to be focused on bland stock imagery, imagery sold in bulk from micro-stock agencies such as i-stock or Shutterstock because the introduction to the workshop described it as offering a more creative approach & thinking about more innovative ways of shooting stock. So in many ways my expectations were high.

Zoe introduced herself as a Commercial Photography Consultant, a title that belongs to very few & one she practically thought up for herself. Her previous 17 years with Getty as a senior creative & current profile of mentoring professional photographers & photo-agents certainly allowed for an insightful & imaginative approach to this workshop.

So what did I learn? To summarise, for Dave & I to be serious in our approach to shooting stock whilst on our travels we need to challenge ourselves creatively, have conceptual meaning behind our imagery, be playful with our subject matter, think more laterally about what we’re attempting to shoot & re-invent previous ways & concepts of shooting. These are just a few things for us to think about. We can place this in any part of the world as long as we look at the usability of the image. When it comes to travel stock photography the main thing we need to focus on is what draws us to a place i.e; the mood, the feel, the atmosphere, what is iconic about it, re-inventing old cliche’s & believe that there is real beauty or emotion within a place & the people that we encounter either constructed or un-constructed.

We will seek inspiration & advice from other well-known creative stock photographer’s & it would be great if our work was accepted for rights managed or royalty free usage by stock libraries. Photographer’s that stood out in Zoe’s seminar were Tim Flach, Susana Vera & Tim Macpherson because their work emphasises character, real-life moments, controversy & often imperfection. Photographer’s who not only sell their photography through macrostock channels, but also would use them in their portfolio. That is what we want to do, create imagery that we are proud of, have fun with & would include in our portfolio as well as see it distributed through a photo agent.

There are many areas to investigate further such as model & property release & also which agency we think would want to sell our work. So let the research begin because this is a venture that will inspire, re-form & challenge the way we shoot.

It was great to meet Zoe & be able to discuss options, think up keywords for usable imagery & brainstorm around how certain brands would use that type of imagery.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0, processed in Photoshop)