And the real winners are... AIPP announces rightful winners following Saad disqualification

Earlier this year, prominent Victorian photographer Lisa Saad was disqualified and banned indefinitely from the AIPP for a number of rules infractions over a number of years. Her membership from a number of other professional bodies around the world, including the NZIPP, WPPI, and SWPP, was also rescinded after it was revealed she had appropriated an image by Dutch photographer Marcel van Balken and used clip art in a number of her award-winning images in contravention of competition rules. The extent of Saad's transgressions was initially broken by Corey Ann Balazowich on the website, www.photostealers.com.

Following the completion of investigations into breaches of the rules of entry in recent AIPP National and Victorian State Professional Photography Awards, and the subsequent disqualification of several entries from Saad, the AIPP has announced the following entrants as the "rightful and deserving winners":

National awards

2015 Australian Commercial Photographer of the Year: Simon Casson

2016 Australian Commercial Photographer of the Year: Karen Alsop

2016 Australian Professional Photographer of the Year: Peter Rossi

2018 Australian Commercial Photographer of the Year: Geoff Comfort

State awards

2015 Victorian Commercial Photographer of the Year: Mercury Megaloudis

2016 Victorian Commercial Photographer of the Year: Brian Randall

2016 Victorian Illustrative Photographer of the Year: Rebecca Croft

2016 Victorian Professional Photographer of the Year: Andrew Campbell

2017 Victorian Illustrative Photographer of the Year: Rebecca Croft

2017 Victorian Highest Scoring Print Award: Robyn Campbell

2017 Victorian Epson Signature Worthy Award: Kristian Piccoli

2017 Victorian Professional Photographer of the Year: James Harvie

2018 Victorian Commercial Photographer of the Year: Steve Scalone

The AIPP will be awarding the revised winners across the 13 categories with a trophy, a certificate, and the relevant cash prize.

The New Zealand Institute of Professional Photography has also taken steps to reward the correct winners from their annual competition affected by rule breaches by Lisa Saad. They made the following statement on their Facebook page on 8 May:

With the conclusion of the Iris Awards rule breaches investigation and subsequent disqualification of Lisa Saad, the NZIPP would now like to announce the rightful recipients of the following awards.

CONGRATULATIONS to the following:

TONY CARTER - 2018 Highest Scoring Print Award
(Tony last year also took home the coveted 2018 NZ Professional Photographer of the Year Award)