I am truly honored to be a part of AIPP (Australian Institute of Professional Photography), a family of professional photographers all around Australia. A group of talented and creative artists that their work has been inspiring me as well as many others for many years.

Due to the pandemic we were forced to cancel all events including state and national awards. However the AIPP board and the awesome Awards team managed to run an impressive brand new online competition. 2020 AIPP Silver Lining Awards gathered all of us once again! My goal for this was to get the top 10. And I was honored to have 2 images in Portrait and 1 in Photo Illustration among so many amazing photos of other finalists.

So incredibly proud and humble to have won first place for both these categories. I cannot say how grateful I am for this specially with all those great images from legends in the top10.

‘I Have a Dream’

I took this shot during a fashion session around a month before we entered lock-down. We were talking about her experiences as a model and her dreams in fashion industry led to discussing racism, poverty and some of the experiences she has had in her journey. This particular portrait is one of my favourites simply because of her expression and the silky black and white tonal. The photo was captured with my Nikon Z7, Nikkor Z 50mm using a single light (Octabox 150 with diffuser on my Broncolor Siros L) at 1/200 Sec, F/10, ISO 100.

Working on this image coincided with the protests in USA and other parts of the world supporting human rights equity. That is why I named this image “I Have a Dream” a tribute to a public speech with same name by Martin Luther King Jr. in which he called for end to racism.

This image won the first place in Portrait Category and received many positive feedbacks from judges. 

Styling and makeup by: Jimmy
Model: Mercy

‘Solitude’ It all started before the pandemic when I challenged myself to create an image using white body paint over a white background. I prepared all the materials I needed and was in the process of finalising the idea and finding the model when everything with the lock-downs and border closure was turned upside down. I suddenly found myself disconnected from my mother and sister, each of us living at one corner of the world. I was watching the news and hearing scary updates from where my mum lives. Remembering the promise I gave to my dad in his last days to protect her and support her, it made me feel powerless, scared and helpless. The grief of losing my dad had ignited inside me once again. One of those days when I was feeling depressed, I decided to paint myself, put the camera on timer, and capture all the emotions I had. There was no plan to do anything with those photos, I just wanted to capture all my feelings. When I was working on my submissions for the Silver Lining Awards, I was going through all these images and decided to do something with them, an image to express all my feelings: fear of loss, feeling helpless, and confronting loss.
‘Mersy’ This image  (right) is one of the images that I took from Mersi during out Fashion shoot. This image was has been selected as a semi-finalist in the ‘Goods and Services’ category. Headpiece and hair and makeup: Jimmy Model: Mercy
‘Unforgettable Beauty’ Kay a beautiful young model was in our studio for a fashion shoot. I had made a head piece and I wanted to create some fashion images using them. My goal was to make a portrait to show her beauty in a class era paining style. This image (right) was also selected as a finalist in the portrait category. Hair and Makeup: Jimmy Model: Kay