New Zealand’s biggest award programme dedicated to travel communications is currently accepting submissions from photographers and writers eager to win cash and travel prizes.

The Cathay Pacific Travel Media Awards, hosted by communications organisation TravCom, celebrates the country’s best travel photographers, writers, and, for the first time this year, bloggers.

There are six photography categories in the schedule this year:

• Cathay Pacific Travel Photographer of the Year Award
• Heritage Boutique Collection for the Best Travel Image taken in New Zealand
• Air Vanuatu and Mangoes Resort Award for the Best Travel Image taken outside New Zealand
• AA Directions Magazine Award for the Best Travel Image with People
• NZ Maori Tourism Award for the Best Travel Image that captures the essence of Maori
• Destinations Magazine Award for the Best Unpublished Travel Image

Prizes this year include travel to Zurich, boutique hotel stays, a trip to Port Vila, and thousands in cash prizes.

Submissions are open until February 27, entry conditions and forms can be found here.

As per usual, you must sign up with TravCom to be eligible to enter and submitted images must have been published in a travel ...full story

In the past few days Canon fans have had plenty to chew on with a whole slew of juicy new models announced across the board, including top-tier DSLRs, a new mirrorless model, and stylish new compacts.

The headliners in the recent announcements are additions to the Canon EOS 5D range; the EOS 5DS and EOS 5DS R. Both models offer a huge 50-megapixel sensor, with the 5DS R ditching the optical low pass filter to offer maximum image sharpness (much like the difference between Nikon’s D800 and D800E).

Looking like a possible alternative to medium format options, both new DSLRs feature 5fps continuous shooting, an ISO range of 100-6400 (expandable to 12800), 61-point autofocus system, and new Digic 6 image processor. (more…)

Told by an art teacher at high school not to pursue photography, Yvonne Todd ignored the advice, once high school was over and she’d done her time at a “dreary admin job”. With a world of possibility opening up to her, Todd experimented and learned the ins and outs of photography.

“It was an exciting time. I felt like I was unlocking the secrets of the universe — secrets I had previously been excluded from knowing,” she says.

Now, Todd has taken over both floors of the City Gallery in Wellington with her exhibition Creamy Psychology, which features around 150 of her photographs. She’s the first artist to take over the entire venue with her work.

“To be the first artist with a solo exhibition that fills the entirety of City Gallery is a significant undertaking … I haven’t had a solo show on this scale before, so it’s a momentous event in my career,” Todd explains.

Subjects of Todd’s images include cripples, anorexics, cult members, showgirls, and tragic heiresses. Typically highly styled with the ...full story

One of New Zealand’s most vital photography institutions is looking to reinvent its web presence and wants to hear from the photographic community as to what the reinvigorated site should be.

With their focus as a non-profit organization on promoting photography as a way to communicate and express, PhotoForum is currently revitalizing their website to make it an engaging and dynamic site that photographers, as well as the wider arts community, will find worthwhile visiting regularly.

But they’re not just going on what they think you’ll want, they’re asking you what you want to make sure you get it.

PhotoForum has created a survey for interested parties to complete that will look into how you the website is used and what can be done to make it better.

The survey can be accessed here and everyone who completes it will be in the draw to win a year’s free membership of PhotoForum.

The official deadline for responses is Thursday, February 5, 2015, but we have it on good word if you get in a tad late you’ll still be in with a grin.

And while ...full story

Commercial photographer Brett Stanley, previously New Zealand-based now working abroad, has made a name for himself across an array of photographic styles, with a particular penchant for beautiful, captivating work shot underwater. And when he invited us along to a shoot we jumped at the chance.

Those of you who read D-Photo‘s sister trade publication, The Photographer’s Mail, will already be well familiar with Brett and his often amusing, always insightful experiences moving his commercial photography business from Wellington to Los Angeles, as essayed in his regular columns.

D-Photo caught up with Brett when he briefly returned to these shores for a whirlwind schedule of underwater shoots in Wellington and Auckland.

If you, like us, have ever wondered what goes into producing the gorgeous, ephemeral images that Brett is rightly noted for (he’s blowing up all over the internet with a recent underwater pole dancing series) then take a look at the behind the scenes video below.

If you’re a professional photographer or work in the imaging industry in some capacity and are not receiving ...full story