The prizes in the wedding category go to John Parris (2), David Armour, John Newman and Stuart Wood. In the portrait section the winners are David Calvert (2), Stuart Wood, John Parris and Adam Hirons. They now go forward to the final judging in September 2011.

Photo from the Wedding Category – by David Armour

Open to ALL professional photographers, these consumer awards are a joint initiative between Fujifilm and the MPA and they are designed to help photographers drive business to their studios by offering the subject of the winning image a substantial cash prize. The subject of each of the two overall winning photographs will receive £1,000 and runner-up consumers in each category will be presented with a £50 shopping voucher.

The Awards are also a major fundraiser for the MPA’s adopted charity, the PACE Centre in Aylesbury (www.thepacecentre.org). From each £2 entry £1 is donated straight to PACE.

Says Colin Buck, MPA chief executive: “These Awards not only help photographers promote their businesses, they also raise considerable funds to help PACE continue its amazing work with children with physical disabilities, such as cerebral palsy. We are very grateful to Fujifilm for their support of the Awards.”

The overall winning photographers will receive the title of ‘MPA/Fujifilm Wedding (or Portrait) Photographer of the Year 2011′ a trophy and a publicity package to help them promote their success. Presentations to the winning photographers will take place at the Master Photography Awards Dinner in October 2011.

The second and final submission period is now open, with a closing date of 30 August. The MPA/Fujifilm Wedding and Portrait Awards are open to ALL professional photographers, not just MPA members. Full details and entry forms are available on the website www.thempa.com/mpa-wedding-and-portrait-awards.php

’We will use the same approach with bron as we have with the new-look Hasselblad UK’ – Chris Russell-Fish, Hasselblad UK MD and Global Sales and Marketing Director

Chris Russell-Fish, Hasselblad UK MD and global sales and marketing director, announced the move following months of negotiation with the Swiss-based lighting manufacturer.

Hasselblad will take over from JP Distribution on July 1st and promises ‘a dynamic array of new ideas and solutions‘ for bron customers nationwide in coming months.

Said Russell-Fish: “I believe we can do a great job for bron users in the UK. Like Hasselblad products, bron equipment sits at the top end of the market. We plan to make a great deal of noise in coming weeks and months around this excellent lighting range.”

Russell-Fish has appointed photo-lighting expert Chris Burfoot as the new broncolor UK manager.

Burfoot, who first started ‘working with light’ in the Eighties said: “Our objective is to create far more awareness around the award-winning bron brand and focus hard on customer service and support for existing users. We also plan a programme of ‘hands-on’ open days with broncolor partners in a non-selling environment – mirroring the success of the popular ‘Hasselblad Studiodays’ programme, and under the name of ‘The beauty of broncolor’.

This premium lighting brand has been built on a rock solid foundation of quality, consistency and reliability. The new-look bron customer care programme will work in exactly the same way as Hasselblad’s renowned ‘Hasselbuddy’ customer care support.”

Hasselblad UK owns the London-based Pro Centre, the photo-equipment rental company, but Russell-Fish insists the bron distribution deal will be no threat to any other brand they work with.

He said: “The Pro Centre acts completely independently as a rental centre. This will simply be an additional line. Bron will be a completely separate entity for us in the same way as our new Hasselblad studio and Didgeridoo services. And just as we have developed energetic new programmes for Hasselblad customers in the UK, we will do the same with bron over time. There will be a separate bron customer care and maintenance team in place in the near future.”

Hasselblad is currently in talks with broncolor with a view to new product launches.

A new website is to go live from the 1st July 2011 at www.ukbroncolor.com, with links to and from the Hasselblad (www.hasselblad.co.uk) website.

Jennifer entered her favourite photograph of the family’s twins, Darcy and Noah White, into the ‘Cherub of The Year’ Competition, run by the Master Photographers Association (MPA).

The Cherub programme is designed to capture a baby’s first year via three different photoshoots and Jennifer’s photograph was shortlisted from thousands of entries from all over the UK.

The win is even more poignant as the twins’ parents Julie & Phil, also from Halifax, didn’t think they could even have children after several traumatic miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies and IVF.

Mum Julie says: “We used to walk past Kyte’s studio windows to look at the amazing photographs of cute babies. We knew if ever the day came along when we were lucky enough to have children of our own there was only one place to go!

“I cried when I first saw the photographs. Jennifer had captured the twins’ personalities in a magical way. We will have these wonderful memories of their first year forever – they have stopped time for us. To win £10,000 on top of all this is just the icing on the cake!”

This latest accolade for Jennifer comes just 6 months after being voted the ‘Cherubs Photographer of the Year 2010′ at the prestigious Master Photography Awards last October.

Since Jennifer launched Kyte Photography 10 years ago – with business partner Lynne Fletcher – their studio has built a strong reputation for producing contemporary lifestyle portraiture and cutting edge wedding photography. Her background in newspapers and advertising has seen her photograph dozens of well known celebrities from the Beckhams and Kylie Minogue to Paul McCartney.

Says Jennifer: “Kyte is already well known in the region for the quality of our baby photography, but to be recognised at a national level is a great honour. And to win £10,000 for a family who have been through so much is even more rewarding.”

The Cherubs bay photography programme is open to all professional photographers in the UK. For details on how to become involved please email cherubs@wpsmedia.co.uk

See inside for great ‘big church setting’ wedding examples, and the albums nominated by our top wedding album suppliers as their own choice for William & Kate!

Perfect Layers is a standalone application that works on its own allowing you to create and edit layered Photoshop files. If you use Lightroom or Aperture and you’ve ever wanted to or wished you had the ability to create a layered file, then this is definitely for you.

Being able to take two or more files and combining them into a single layered file or taking a single image and duplicating it to create multiple layers and use blending modes to enhance them is very powerful and opens up all kinds of creative things you can do.

onOne have been working closely with Scott Kelby from the National Association of Photoshop Professionals on Perfect Layers to refine the feature set and get great ideas in general on Lightroom users need. Scott has been playing with early development builds of Perfect Layers and he (and the rest of his team including Matt Kloskowski and RC Concepcion) are very excited about the possibilities that Perfect Layers will bring to Lightroom users.

The Perfect Layers Public Preview will expire on June 30th, 2011. The final version, 1.0, will be available for purchase in mid-2011. At that time, Perfect Photo Suite 5.5 owners will receive a free product update that will include Perfect Layers 1.0. Suite owners and anyone interested in Perfect Layers can download the free public preview now.

The first of the classes, The Perfect Black and White Print, will give delegates an understanding of a simple workflow to obtain superb black and white prints from your Epson printer, covering topics such as scanning black and white negatives, the simple controls in Photoshop for black and white, and mastering the Epson Advanced Black and White print driver.

The second academy class, Making Perfect Exhibition Prints, will explain in detail the steps and tricks to be utilised for exhibition-standard print creation from your Epson printer.

Confidence with Colour is the third class being offered to provide expert knowledge on the fundamentals of image capture, image processing and print workflow. Class-goers will learn from the expert’s 14 years’ experience of printing and colour management techniques. The class will explore colour perception, working with rendering intents, the use of ICC output profiles to print and best practice on camera with the final print in mind.

The fourth of the classes, Fine Art Photography, explores the meaning of art photography, capturing the perfect image, understanding and using light and colour as well as depth of field, and approaches to composition. From taking the photograph through to printing it, the class will also cover key techniques for Photoshop manipulation, media choice for printing, and a look into the current offering of borders, and a review of mounts and frames.

Classes can be booked at: www.aspect2i.co.uk/epsonprintacademy.html

See:

http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/cssubscription.html

A new version of the suite, CS5.5, has just been launched with additional modules for converting or creating content to use on mobile platforms such as Android phones or iOS.