Who am I to blow my own trumpet? Nestled amongst the gum trees, between the howls of the wolverines and the smacking swells against the rugged coastline, it's hard to hear anything around here. So I'll just whisper it quietly, friend to friend.....I just found out I topped The International Wedding Photojournalism Association's (WPJA) list for best of the best Australian Wedding Photojournalists last year. The whisper just turned into a yeewwWWW!. Yeah OK, let the trumpet be heard.
So I nailed the top position for the Aussie contingent. I was also the only one of us from down here that made the top 100. And actually what counts for me personally above all is that I'm nudging closer to that spot at the top of the list for all of us around the globe - number 26. Almost top 25. Considering my fellow shooters that I'm up against (which in a nutshell is every single Wedding Photojournalist on the planet worth their salt,) I'm over the moon, and truly humbled by the talent of those guys leading the tally.
It's harder and harder to stand out these days as a Wedding Photographer. We're pretty much the only paid Professional Photographers left. There's still a smattering of full time guys across the board, but on the most part, images are being sourced from what's now an oceanic pool of incredibly gifted amateur shooters, that are happy enough to give their images away for nothing or next to it. We understand. It's OK...
I write this partly as a stand up, stoked out, passion bubbling, freakin' photog, that loves this gig more than anything (except my wife and kids, and my new twin keel fish...I digress). But I also write this as an insider and observer that has spent 10 years as a full time Wedding Photojournalist, and seen some changes.
I'm not going to go on to far on this tangent, but if you appreciate THE MOMENT, and you get a sense how hard it is to capture that stuff consistently every time you pick up a camera, then help me keep the dream alive and give me some of that riff on the drum and some melody as you help me sing it out loud.