GAIA HEALEY: PHOTOGRAPHY MENTOR PROJECT

Over a large part of this year I've had the absolute privilege of mentoring the lovely and multi talented Gaia Healey through her Year 8 Independent Project based on the photography medium. She produced a beautiful hardcover book of her images and a gorgeous and eloquently written journal of her whole project which she presented in an evening last week to all the Year 8 teachers, families and mentors. She also produced a lovely web journal through the process... check it out!

http://gaiahealeyphotography.blogspot.com

She has a terrific eye for the elements of subtlety and grace, as you can see, and showed a lot of committment to follow through on her project - despite some funky setbacks! It was awesome being your mentor Gaia, thank you so much for asking and putting up with me jetting off all the time! Keep up the great work, and feel free to show me some new tricks anytime!

KAYAKING PHOTOGRAPHY MASTERCLASS

A couple of weeks ago I was invited to teach an action sport photography class on location. Based in Tarraleah, deep in the wilds of Western Tasmania., the specific focus was on kayaking photography and was held in conjuction with the 2010 White Water Conference. After a quick tech talk we got straight into the heart of the matter, racing up and down the challenging course shooting fastidiously while the paddlers were doing their runs. A lot of cumecs were flowing so the paddlers had there work cut out for them, especially in the infamous 'Cruncher' rapid! There wouldn't be many places in the world where you can get such closeness, variety of angles (both sides of river, bridges, complete riverbank access etc) and consistency of paddlers coming down to photograph, so it was a fabulous opportunity to experiment!

We all went through our images and spent time critiquing each others, as well as delving deeper into the relevant technical skills, camera settings and equipment issues. I presented two shows to the whole Conference Saturday night. The first was a selection of my images from the day laced with an artistic flavour, and then a larger Tasmanian Landscape Photography Show to finish the night. I absolutely relished being in an educatory role and really look forward to my next opportunity to teach!

Here's a small selection and a link to a gallery of my shots from the Masterclass.

http://gallery.me.com/paulhoelen#100278

EUROPEAN AWARDS: Trierenberg Supercircuit

Last month I submitted a selection of images to the illustrious global Trierenberg Supercircuit Awards based in Austria. Of the 55,ooo entries worldwide, nine of mine have been selected to travel through Europe over their summer in a huge travelling show. Two other images have also been published in their exquisitely printed Awards book, which just arrived on my doorstep a couple of days ago. These are the two images...

I've never entered the awards before and am super happy with my first attempt, particularly in gaining some valuable exposure in the European market. I'll certainly be entering them again next year!!!

Thank you Chris (awards organiser) for your wonderful feedback, much appreciated. http://www.supercircuit.at

And also I'd particularly like to thank the lovely Belinda Fettke for her encouragement and terrific generosity in helping me select and prepare the images for the awards. www.bphotography.net.au

Thanks Belinda!