At the gala dinner last night in Melbourne, for the AIPP’s Australian Professional Photography Awards (APPA), portrait photographer Keren Dobia was named the 2017 AIPP Australian Professional Photographer of the Year. She was also the winner of the Portrait category. Over 400 photographers from around Australia attended the event which saw the winners across all the competition categories revealed.
Apart from being a photographer, Dobia works as a creative director for theatrical productions, designing, creating, and sourcing both costumes and sets. She says her passion for the visual arts is what has driven her to create much of her dramatic and emotive imagery. “My background in painting and drawing has allowed me to blur the line between photography and illustration,” she says.
Dobia is a graduate of NMIT Diploma of Photoimaging, where she is now a lecturer. She has previously exhibited her work in a variety of galleries, most notably at Obscura Gallery – a fine art photography gallery in St. Kilda.
APPA is the largest awards for professional print photography in Australia and is the only professional photography awards in the country that require physical prints to be submitted for judging. The Australian Institute of Professional Photography (AIPP) – the country’s largest photographic membership body – has been running the awards annually for the past 41 years.
In 2017, more than 500 entrants submitted a collective of almost 2,000 images to be judged for APPA. The awards were peer-judged anonymously over three days by some of the industry’s heavyweights.
2017 AIPP Australian Professional Photography Awards winners
• Professional Photographer of the Year – Keren Dobia
• Portrait Photographer of the Year – Keren Dobia
• Epson Signature Worthy Award – Keren Dobia
• Commercial Photographer of the Year – Angela Miller
• Creative Photographer of the Year – Leah Kennedy
• Documentary Photographer of the Year – Kelly Champion
• Family Photographer of the Year – Katie Kolenberg
• Illustrative Photographer of the Year – Kris Anderson
• Landscape Photographer of the Year – Yane Sotiroski
• Newborn Photographer of the Year – Jodie Andrews
• Pet/Animal Photographer of the Year – Angie Connell
• Science Wildlife and Wild Places Photographer of the Year – Steven Duncan
• Travel Photographer of the Year – Mick Porter
• Wedding Photographer of the Year – James Simmons
• Album of the Year – Eric Ronald
• Photographic Book of the Year – Steve Scalone
• Emerging Photographer of the Year – Barbara Brown
• Student Photographer of the Year – Alec Morris
• Overseas Photographer of the Year – Kelvin Gilbert
• Highest Scoring Print – Tania Malkin and Marija Sullavan
• Tertiary Institution of the Year – North Metropolitan TAFE, Western Australia
• Grand Master Award – Andrew Campbell
