Family and work commitments kept him away from home for over 20 years, during which time he was bitten by the photography bug after borrowing a family members SLR camera. Soon after he went out and purchased his own Nikon kit and taught himself the ways of the darkroom. He tried many types of photography, but was always drawn back to land and seascapes.

After far too many years in the ‘rat race’ he decided it was time to pursue his dream of becoming professional photographer. Fuelled by the memories of the walks along the coastal path with his Grandparents he returned home to Pembrokeshire in 2004, with camera in hand.

Kersten now shoots his landscapes exclusively on Nikon full frames DSLR’s throughout Pembrokeshire, Wales and beyond. He prefers working during the golden hours, when the weather is a bit temperamental (which in Wales can be quite often) or more recently under clear dark night skies.

In 2013 Kersten achieved the highly regarded distinction of Associate from the Societies of Nature and Wildlife Photography. He also launched his Under Celtic Skies photography workshops during this year, which he runs in Pembrokeshire, mainly during the autumn and winter months.

In September 2015 Kersten’s first book will be published by Welsh publishers Graffeg. The book comprises 50 large images from all around Pembrokeshire, showing off the beauty and variety of the county’s scenery.

Kersten discovered the Innova and Olmec range of papers a few years into his digital printing, and has not regretted his decision to leave the printers ‘own brand’ paper out of his workflow. He uses both the Innova FibaPrint® White Matte 280gsm (IFA39) and the Olmec Archival Matt 230gsm (OLM67) papers.

His full range of images, along with details of his workshops and book, can be found at – www.khowardphotography.com. Kersten can also be found on Facebook – khowardphotography, and on Twitter – @photokhoward.

Natascha Van Niekerk is a Fine Art Photographer who had her first collaboration with Innova Art at Fespa 2015, with images that combine a vivid dramatic sensibility with the stunning landscape of her native South Africa.

She says, “I discovered Innova paper through a fellow artist and have since then fallen in love with the texture and feel of the fine art paper range. The tone and weight of the IFA22 paper (Soft Textured Natural White 100% cotton) works very well with my work as it really accentuates the matt and textured qualities of my images.”

Natascha sells both limited and open edition prints of her work, printing in-house on piezo aqueous technology. She sells at exhibitions, decor shows and online. She is currently represented by Knobs&Tassles gallery in Capetown.

More of Natascha’s work can be seen on her website: www.nataschavniekerk.com

Landscape Photography and Photoshop are rarely taught together by the same person as one complete process; from vision at the camera to print. Photography workshops tend to mean photographic holidays and Photoshop tuition is taught without a creative context.

David Osborn is unique in that he sees the photography and Photoshop stages as two sides of one coin; both essential and dependent on each other to create the end result. He uses the ability with digital technology to build up a photograph using layers shot for the purpose.

David runs personal tuition and workshops in the UK and over-seas with the sole aim of photographic education, teaching this holistic philosophy with great emphasis on craftsmanship and creating high quality prints.

The print is the final product of vision. David chooses to print on Innova Art’s FibaPrint^® papers, renowned for their beautiful deep blacks and sublime tones that convey the subtle tones and light of the landscape he loves so much. David feels his prints have a richness not found with other papers.

David began his career after leaving college with a degree in Graphic Design working with Reuter News Pictures in London during the Margaret Thatcher years of the 1980’s; working as a hard news photographer in London and then Asia.

This was followed by a move to Sydney, Australia for ten years where he ran a commercial photography studio specialising in the electronics industry shooting annual reports for GE, Alacatel, Nortel and industrial photography.

In 2000, David returned to London which was soon followed by the commission to document the complete construction of Heathrow Airports Terminal 5 building, at the time the largest construction project in Europe to create a central photographic achieve.

With a passion for quality, the outdoors and photography, David began his personal landscape photography in black and white on his return to London. After 15 years, this area has now grown to take up a large proportion of his time.

This has now evolved into the area of tuition out of a frustration at seeing photographic standards generally fall and a lack of good quality education available for those who wish to improve.

David Osborn’s photographs are sold in galleries in the USA and Middle East. David is available for personal tuition and workshops. His website, covers more detail.

www.davidosborn.london

Gerry is the first person worldwide to have achieved a Fellowship for a panel of iPhone images from the British Institute of Professional Photographers (BIPP). Fellowship is the highest honour that can be bestowed on a photographer by his peers. He is the first and only double winner of the Peter Grudgeon award for best Fellowship panel of the year from the BIPP (2009 and 2012). He has also achieved Fellowships from the Royal Photographic Society (RPS), Master Photographers Association (MPA and Society of Wedding and Portrait Photographers (SWPP). He has had many of his images accepted into the Royal Ulster Acadamy’s annual exhibition, and his work is held in many private collections. Gerry has been featured in many publications including; MacWorld, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian and many other local and international magazines and newspapers.

All Gerry’s images are for sale in limited editions of just 15 (independent of size), apart from two artists proofs, no others will be printed. The original file will be retained in case anyone suffers damage to their print and a replacement will be made.

To buy and view Gerry’s work visit www.iphone-art.co.uk

Gerry’s thoughts on Innova
“From the very first time I started using Innova papers I have never gone elsewhere, I love the tactile feel of the papers, I use the Soft Textured Natural White for my special  ‘Pencil Portrait’ high key images and also use it along with the Smooth Cotton High White for a lot of my iPhone images”

The Women’s Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art is pleased to announce the winners of our 2010 Photography Portfolio Competition. The competition was conceived to draw attention to photography’s significance as a contemporary art form, and as part of a strategy to broaden and build the Museum’s already extensive photography collection. The Women’s Committee hoped to attract established artists and to discover new talent. Eight hundred photographers from around the world submitted images. Our team of expert jurors selected six winning artists for the portfolio, along with one Curator’s Choice winner whose print will be sold individually.

Each of these artists’ winning images will become part of the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

The six artists selected for the 2010 Photography Portfolio will each receive a $1,000 prize. The artists are:

Jinyoung Koh
Jinyoung Koh was born in Boryeong, Korea, and lives and works in both Seoul and New York City. He received a BFA from the Art Institute of Chicago and a MFA in photography and media from the California Institute of the Arts. He is currently enrolled in the graduate program in Arts and Humanities at Columbia University in New York. Koh’s focus is landscape photography. Here, he examines with a fine lens the effects of human presence on what he calls “the surfaces of our society.” He has further stated that he “wants to explore human interaction as the common thread that connects us all.”

Rory Mulligan
Rory Mulligan is a graduate of Yale University School of Art, where he received an MFA in photography. Prior to attending Yale, Mulligan studied at Fordham University in New York. He has exhibited in Tokyo, New York, and Philadelphia, and has lectured and taught at Bard College, Sarah Lawrence College, Wesleyan University, and the International Center for Photography in New York. Working primarily with black-and-white photography, Mulligan pursues a synthesis between private and public experience. His images of twisting roadways, rowhomes, and storefronts are almost all devoid of figures. His interior scenes depict a few of his friends in their familiar surroundings. Most of the human activity he observes is from a distant viewpoint. In this example, he captures the “performances” of figures on a California beach where he as photographer accepts the role of “pedestrian, participant, and director, investigating the looming presence of masculinity that simultaneously fascinates, threatens, excites and excludes me.”

Jason Reblando
Jason Reblando is a freelance multimedia photographer and video artist based in Chicago. He received his MFA in photography from Columbia College in Chicago and a BA in sociology from Boston College. He has received several grants, awards, and fellowships, primarily for his documentary work. In addition, he has had numerous exhibitions in Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, and other major cities. Underpass is from Reblando’s New Deal Utopias series, for which he photographed three Greenbelt planned communities built by the US government in the 1930s as utopian places for people to live and work. He was drawn to these them because they represent a much different attitude toward government and civil life than predominates in the United States today. He says, “I draw inspiration for my work from my curiosity about power structures and urban planning, in order to explore the complex relationship between humans, nature, and the built environment.”

Elaine Stocki
Elaine Stocki grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and received her BA in fine arts and science from the University of Manitoba. She proceeded on to Yale University, graduating with an MA in photography. In 2011, Stocki was awarded Canada’s prestigious Grange Prize. She has exhibited at numerous galleries in Canada and the United States as well as in Berlin, Germany. William was taken in New Haven, where Stocki formed a two-year friendship with a homeless man, who is one of the figures in this complex composition. Like many of the artist’s other photographs, this close study of cropped faces evokes many ideas about race and class in North America. Yet, Stocki wants her depictions of these subjects to be viewed differently than traditional documentaries about social culture. By positioning her subjects in a “farcical situation,” a type of happening or performance, she hopes to achieve this. “I like working with groups of people–groups of bodies–because there is an unexpected element to it.”

Monika Sziladi
Monika Sziladi is from Budapest, Hungary, and lives and works in New York City. She studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and in 2010 received her MFA from the Yale University School of Art and Photography. She was awarded the Alice Kimball Traveling Scholarship among other grants and fellowships, notably at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in New York. Sziladi has exhibited widely since 2005 and her shows have been accompanied by several articles and catalogues. Ribs is from her series Wide Receivers, which presents primarily young women dressed for parties or participating in outrageous scenes at public events. Sziladi is a supreme social observer, and her images are intended to humorously prod the viewer into exploring the effects of social media on contemporary life.

Martine Fougeron
Martine Fougeron was born in Paris, France and lives in New York City. She is a fine art photographer, a painter, and formerly an expert in the perfume industry. Fougeron was educated at the Lycee Francais in New York, Wellesley College, the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, and the International Center for Photography. She exhibits in the United States and abroad; her work is held in major public and private collections including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles.
Tete-a-Tete, Fougeron’s biographic story of her two adolescent sons, Nicolas and Adrien, is considered to be one of the best in contemporary photography and relatively unique as a mother/son documentation. Beginning in 2005, Fougeron created a visual diary of the boys and their friends primarily at their homes, making pictures that are naturally staged and delicately lit but alive with spontaneity. Fougeron states, “Adolescence is a liminal state between childhood and adulthood, between the feminine and the masculine, and between innocence and a burgeoning self-consciousness.”

The Curator’s Choice single-print winner will receive a $500 prize:
Janet Pritchard – Curator’s Choice Winner
A landscape photographer, Janet Pritchard is keenly interested in history and a sense of place. She is an associate professor at the University of Connecticut, where she teaches a class on the American landscape. Pritchard graduated from the University of New Mexico with an MA/MFA and began her teaching career at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia and the University of Colorado. She has received several awards and fellowships, specifically at the American Antiquarian Society, where she studied the annual reports of the US Geographical Survey of Territories from the 1870s. Rock Climbing is from a series called Views from Wonderland, Volume 1. Pritchard is also an outdoor education instructor and has made several trips to photograph Yellowstone National Park, where she experiences the park emotionally through what she calls “the lens of personal memory.” In her pictures of the park, she attempts to preserve history and to link her own experiences there with the images of the past. Pritchard looked closely at the first photographs of the park by William Henry Jackson, paintings by Thomas Moran, and vintage postcards. She developed a method that she describes as “the pursuit of artistic vision through historical empathy.”

Dinah joined Smethwick Photographic Society in 2000 and really began to learn about photography. Digital cameras soon began to appear and, despite starting with black and white darkroom photography, Dinah bought a Canon 10 D and started the learning process all over again with digital photography. It was around this time that she decided to focus her talents on the genres of still life, portraiture and figure studies.

She also began to enter international competitions and, after some success, began to apply for distinctions in photography as well. Dinah currently holds an ARPS (images of exceptional standard) distinction with the Royal Photographic Society, an MPAGB (highest standard of UK amateur photography) with the Photographic Alliance of Great Britain and an AFIAP (Artist of the International Federation of Photographic Art) with the French Photographic. She is currently trying to broaden her body of work with landscape and street photography.

Dinah’s thoughts on Innova
“I have recently started using Innova papers firstly for my black and white images but more recently with colour work. I find the style I have developed which is mostly soft gentle images work really well on Innova papers. Soft Touch and Lady in White were both printed on Smooth Cotton Natural White 100% Cotton (IFA 11); the other paper I use a lot is Smooth Cotton High White 100% Cotton (IFA 14). I also enjoy using FibaPrint® White Gloss (IFA 09) as this suits my Colour and Black and White images.”

For more examples of Dinah’s work see the members and distinctions galleries at www.smethwickphotographic.co.uk

After winning a competition run by Innova at The Photography Show in March 2014 we featured a range of his work on our stand at FESPA Digital in Munich the same year. Examples of the images displayed on the stand can be seen above. For more of Simon’s work and to discuss opportunities to purchase and commission his work visit www.simonbullimages.co.uk.

Comments from the Artist
“I was delighted and honoured that Innova Art chose to display such a large selection of my work on their trade stand at the FESPA Digital 2014 Show in Munich recently

After spending time as a teacher, he was tempted back to photography as a career in the mid 1970’s. In later years he continued to teach whilst pursuing photography as a hobby, focusing on subjects close to his heart. With a lifelong commitment to film Denis continued shooting using Kodachrome, sending in his last roll for processing in 2010. Not afraid of the digital age, Denis has embraced his computer and, now shoots in purely digital format, producing prints on Innova Art papers and canvas.

More information about Denis and his work can be found at www.denis-barrau-photo.com

Jim’s photography has garnered many awards and is included in prominent collections such as The Museum of Modern Art, The Walker Art Center and The Polaroid Collection. Jim has exhibited widely; nationally and internationally, with large solo exhibitions at the Santa Monica Museum of Art and the James Corcoran Gallery in Los Angeles. Jim’s work is featured at Louis Stern Fine Arts in Los Angles and Acte 2 Gallery in Paris.

Known equally for his portraiture, McHugh has published several books of artists portraits including “The Art of Light and Space” by Abbeyville Press and “California Artists: New Work” by Chronicle Press. His portrait of David Hockney is the cover of Hockney’s book “That’s the Way I See It.” Jim Mchugh won the International Photography Awards’ First Prize for Fine Art Photography 2007 and The George Eastman House Best of Show for Architectural imagery of Los Angeles.

www.jimmchugh.com

Cole made his name as a photographer on the inside track of the UK’s nascent hip hop scene, capturing the indefinable cool of graffiti artists, rappers and break dancers, a style that crosses all boundaries: racial, religious, social and geographical.

But what really distinguishes Josh Cole’s images of urban living from London and Durban to Kigali and Buenos Aires is his talent for capturing people at their most expressive – whether they are freerunners, lofted into the air, mid-somersault, or immigrant workers in Abu Dhabi, patiently sitting and waiting. High-profile campaigns for Nokia, Nike, Levis, Vodafone, Tmobile and Converse reflect his appeal.

Josh’s natural affinity with his subjects is what clients value most. “People get me to do stuff when they want ‘natural’,” he explains. “I’m the natural guy!”

Josh began printing with Innova Art, after being introduced to the company by the street artist RYCA. This piece of serendipity couldn’t have been better timed as it coincided with Josh’s newfound conversion to digital photography.

“I’d just bought my first proper digital camera – a Hasselblad – and had to begun to move from analogue printed photos to printing digital files with digital retouch,” Josh explains. “The camera really turned me around – it’s the first digital camera I’ve felt this way about because it reacts so much more like a film camera.”

However, Josh’s early experiments with printing were disappointing until he matched the capabilities of the Hasselblad with Innova Art’s award-winning digital media. Now he produces his exhibition prints on the Innova Art IFA29 – FibaPrint® White Semi Matte 300gsm, and his portfolio work on the unique double-sided IFA25 – Décor Smooth Art Matte 220gsm paper. The results in both cases are easily on a par with traditional darkroom prints, says Josh – “they may even be better.’

“The quality and finish of the prints with the Innova papers has been absolutely amazing. I love it that you can print so large and still see every detail – all the artistry of the retouching process – in the finished print. I’ve also really enjoyed being able to present my work in book format with the double-sided paper, as opposed to individual prints in horrible shiny sleeves.”

“For me, digital is the only way forward,” Josh says. “There are statements that I want to make with my work, now I need to push on. And now I’m sure I’ve everything I need to make that happen.”

See more of Josh’s work at www.joshcole.co.uk