Table of contents for Nov/Dec/Jan 21 in Capture

But her comment came 28 years too early. Back in 1992, in a speech she referred to the year as “annus horribilis”, a Latin phrase meaning horrible year. Among the horrors of the year she was no doubt alluding to included the toe-sucking scandal involving Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York. Toe-sucking scandal? Bring it on, I say! More than happy to weather that storm. Instead, we got COVID-19! And the bushfires from Hell! This year has truly been an annus horribilis. As if professional photographers didn’t already have enough to keep themselves occupied trying to run a business in an ever-increasing competitive and saturated market, the impact of the pandemic has been significant for many – financially, creatively, and mentally. But photographers are a hardy, determined, and resilient group of…

For ACT wedding photographer Kelly Tunney, smaller, intimate weddings were the only way forward, and she seized this trend to keep her business buoyant. This wasn’t, though, her first response. “I didn’t want to consider anything new when this all started. I didn’t want to adapt my business or do ‘front porch’ sessions from my car. Call it denial, but I was too down and depressed to think creativity. I felt very content to quit my business after fourteen years. It was a few months of fear, but things turned around…eventually.” Conquering negativity Tunney’s motivation to look for and seize opportunities waxed and waned throughout the year, she adds. “Some new business ideas have been exciting to experiment with, but also scary. Nobody knows how this will pan out for…

Photography no longer plays the same role in advertising as it once did. The gorgeous, glossy image-as-hero full page, full-colour spread is not the campaign highlight it once was. At the D&AD Awards, one of the most prestigious international advertising awards, it still features with a category of its own even though this is no longer the norm in major advertising awards, and the same standard of excellence still applies during judging. German photographer Esther Haase was a jury member this year. She states, “During the process we were always asking ourselves in the jury, is the work worthy of recognition, was it beautifully executed, is it outstanding work, has it creative excellence, is the idea brilliant, ground-breaking, is it surprising and can it change my point of view, widen…

While the first few months of the year saw the biggest names in local talent returning to home soil to cover the worst bushfire season in recent history, this disaster quickly segued into the COVID-19 outbreak — a phenomenon that would prove at once the biggest talking point for reportage, journalism, and documentary photography, but also the single biggest source of income loss for photographers, and the publishing industry, in a single year. While 2020 will undoubtedly be remembered as a year that most choose to try and forget, it will also be remembered as a year that changed the face of photojournalism and editorial photography forever. From street photography in New York City to the remotest of islands of Southern Australia, a complex web of issues has united photographers…