Simon Hill, a final year student in the Advanced Diploma of Photography (Commercial) at TAFE SA, Tea Tree Gully campus has been awarded the coveted Student of the Year Award of the Australian Institute of Professional Photography (SA Division).
He submitted three prints for judging at the annual Print Awards and received two silver awards.
“I was eager to see how the quality of my work compared with that of current practicing professionals,” said Simon. “With that in mind I decided to submit a few of my images, some of which are part of my final folio. I was delighted to receive two silver awards and even more so to be chosen as the AIPP (SA) Student of the Year”
The Australian Institute of Professional Photography (AIPP) is a national photographic body that concerns itself with maintaining high standards of photographic practice and business ethics. It does this by offering its members educational seminars and an opportunity to have their photographic work critiqued and assessed through a peer review system. The mechanism for this is the National Print Awards. Each state division in turn runs its own Print Awards as a pre-curser to the national.
The South Australian AIPP Print Awards were run in early November. Several hundred individual images spanning such categories as landscape, commercial, illustrative/fine art, documentary, portrait and wedding were offered for judging. A panel of five experienced judges, with expertise in particular facets of the Industry, spent three days assessing and critiquing these images. All images were judged anonymously under standardised lighting and viewing conditions. Images considered being of a higher than commercial industry standard were awarded silver awards and those of outstanding quality, gold awards.
TAFE SA Senior Lecturer in Commercial photography Alex Knezevic is extremely pleased Simon has received this accolade from the SA Photographic Industry.
“It will stand him in very good stead in gaining employment in what is a very competitive industry.
“Simon is part of a class of graduating students who have just completed their studies in our state based Advanced Diploma of Photography (Commercial).
"In 2012 we will be entering a new phase of photographic education offering the Advanced Diploma of Creative Product Development (Photo-imaging) for the first time. This, coupled with the new purpose-built studios and computing suites at our Tea Tree Gully campus, means students are ensured state-of-the-art training in digital photo-imaging.”