Announcing the SvenStudios 2023 Wedding Photo of the year winner!
I’m pleased to say that after another year of shooting weddings in Adelaide and around Australia, I can announce the people’s choice 2023 wedding photo of the year as shot by SvenStudios!
The photographs that were in conntention this year here were captured by SvenStudios during various weddings in 2022. The featured couples selected these specific images as their top favorites from all of the images we provided and the photograph that received the highest votes is entitled to a product voucher worth $500 towards printing some of their photos!
This competition is a way for us to express our gratitude to all the bridal couples we have worked with during the year, while also gathering feedback on how others perceive our photography beyond our own perspective.
Please note that these photographs may or may not align with our personal favorites from the weddings – which is kind of the point of running this contest – it’s all about learning what people like! While feedback and reviews are fantastic – there nothing like having a favourite image from each wedding given to us to understand what people see in our work!
The 2023 Wedding Photo of the year winner is –
Congratulations to Sash and Dan for winning the 2023 Wedding Photo of the year! You should have now recieved a $500 voucher to go towards some prints! I’d love to see what you choose!
Sash + Dan
The winner of the $100 cash prize for voting is –
Of course I also give out $100 cash each year to all those who cast a vote. 524 people cast their vote this year – that’;s pretty good odds! Please check your email if your (abbreviated) name is below!
A. Crisp
Thankyou to all those who voted and took part in this year’s Photo of the Year contest! Looking forward to what we see for 2024!
Yet another year has been and past, and what a year it has been for the wedding industry! This past week saw the announcement of the winners of the 2021 South Australian ABIA Awards and I can proudly say that SvenStudios has once again shown to be one of the top rated wedding suppliers in South Australia!
The ABIA awards (Australian Bridal Industry Academy) are awarded to wedding vendors in a wide variety of categories in each state, and also nationally each year. In previous years, SvenStudios has proudly been a finalist in a number of categories, including wedding photographer, photobooth supplier, and this year also being a fionalist int he wedding videography category. In the 2020 edition of the awards, SvenStudios was awarded the runner-up wedding photographer of the year and the runner-up best photobooth supplier of the year gongs in South Australia so we were quite optimistic about the results of the 2021 South Australian ABIA Awards!
Unfortunately we diddn’t quite take out the golden star as the best wedding photographer, nor the best wedding videographer in the state, although we are very proud to have been selected as a finalist in both these categories!
Wedding photographer 2021 ABIA SA Finalist
Wedding videographer 2021 ABIA SA Finalist
In order to be a finalist in a category an aggregate rating drawn from reviews direct from previous couples are collated and run through an algorithm to find the best rated supplier in each category. A finalist is a supplier who achieved a rating of 95% or above. SvenStudios recieved an aggregate rating of 97.94% for wedding photography, and 96.18% as a wedding videographer!
The ABIA Awards are a unique way of running awards with the winners soley selected by the reviews given by previous couples the supplier has served at their actual wedding in the previous year. In this way future engaged couples are better informed by how well a certain supplier has bee recieved in the past by other couples, without having to rely on ‘industry expert’ awards awarded by people not in any way involved with a supplier’s past work.
As a result SvenStudios are super happy and proud to have recieved such glowing reviews over the past year by our newly wedded couples and super pleased to be a finalist wedding photographer and videographer in the 2021 South Australian ABIA Awards! Thanks so much for those who took the time to write out a lovely review, and hopefully next year we can take out the golden star!
Being a Landscape photographer helps me with wedding photography
As many of you may know, I was crowned as South Australian Professional Landscape Photographer of the year through the annual state-based AIPP awards in 2016. I also happened to win the national title of Science photographer of the year at the national awards. One might think that this is a bit of a disconnect with being a better wedding photographer, and may be asking why I’m not winning the title of ‘Wedding Photographer of the year’. But I’d argue that due to my professional-level prowess in these other genres of photography, I’m able to approach wedding photography in a unique, laid-back and genuine way.
It’s like having an professional chef come in and cook you dinner, it’s not as if that chef would only be capable of cooking a single meal would they? So how does being a successful Landscape photographer help at all with being a better wedding photographer?
Landscape photographer of the year 2016
How being Landscape Photographer of the year helps with Wedding Photography
Having done both landscape and wedding work professionally for over 5 years now, I’d just like to point out the type of adaptability required to move from one work situation to another. In the landscape field, people appreciate a huge amount of technical ability, and the ability to create works of art from the mundane. This skill set is easily transferred over to wedding photography as my work is always of a high calibre technically and I love to incorporate an ‘epic vibe’ to much of my work.
Having worked in a variety of different situations I have the experience to quickly adapt to whatever is thrown at me in regards to scenery, lighting and weather. It’s through my ability as a landscape and scientific photographer that I can quite quickly and easily adapt to anything a wedding throws at me, while also drawing on my 5 years experience of shooting weddings. Neither skillset is mutually exclusive of one another and it’s one thing that I feel sets me apart from other photographers, that and my additional services I provide for free.
Bride and Groom under trees
The general knowledge of photography needed to be successful in these fields also comes into play in a huge way. I am intimately familiar in how a camera works and frequently utilise home-made cameras to create some of my award winning work. While I’m no gear snob, and couldn’t care less how much your camera costs, I understand what equipment is needed to capture the shot the way I would like. It’s for this reason my work looks the way it does, it’s the root of my artistry.
Say I want to use a sun flare or sunset happening behind my bride and groom, the same knowledge is used when thinking about shooting a landscape.
Glenelg sunset
Being so successful in other genres of photography also allows me to see things in ways others don’t. I hate being a cookie cutter at my weddings, I cringe at how many photographers approach weddings by taking all the same shots at every single wedding they do. Of course there are some shots that just work and look amazing, but every single one? I think it’s important to personalise each wedding based on the personality of the bride and groom, and I shoot accordingly using my knowledge in all genres of photography.
Through the foliage at Bridgewater Mill
Due to my work in a variety of different genres, I’ve also become quite proficient in photoshop. This would also be due to my several degrees in Multimedia and associated subjects, but it’s truly doing the work that gives me the practice. It’s a lot of fun too 🙂 The below photo may not be suited to every wedding, but I think it demonstrates the technical ability in photoshop I have garnered through my prowess in other genres of photography, and not just weddings.
Star wars wedding at Auchendarroch House
For a bit of a taste of my Landscape work if you’re interested, I have a separate website built to showcase my work at https://stevenduncanart.com
Last night I attended the 2022 Onkaparinga Business Awards presentation event hosted at the Mclaren Vale visitor center and by the lovely ladies behind Adelady. I expected to head out there, enjoy the free food, gin and icecream, then head home after rubbing shoulders with the owners of the best businesses the Onkaparinga region has to offer.
lo and behold I actually managed to win my category! SvenStudios was crowned as the ‘best artist, musician or creator’ in the city of Onkaparinga for 2022, and it’s all thanks to everyon who voted!
The award is given to the most voted for business in any given category – SvenStudios’ category being ‘Captivating creative services’ and then all the voted for businesses are given sub categories. So thankyou everyone who voted! Means a lot!
icecream
Winner onkaparinga business awards
SvenStudios with adelady
SvenStudios was originally placed in the ‘Marketing, Design and Media’ category, but then was changed to the ‘Artist, Musician or Creator’ category, which suited what I do better as the other finalists in the formaer category seemed to cater more towards other businesses, and corperate clients, while I focus on domestic photography, for familes and of course weddings!
I believe this was the first year where the awards has a specific category for artsists, or creators so it’s pretty awesome to win it at the 2022 Onkaparinga Business Awards! I had been entering and trying to agther votes over the past few years but never got to be a finalist until last night!
These past few years have been insanely hectic and stressful in the wedding industry, but everything is coming up Milhouse today!
It’s that time of year again, all the wedding industry awards are being held, and the ABIA awards are the one I put most stock in. The 2022 SA ABIA Awards saw SvenStudios once again rise to the top of the best wedding suppliers available in South Australia in all that we offer – Wedding Photography, Videography and Photobooth Hire. But the competition in this great state of ours is always super tight, which means we still have not achieved a winning gold star, despite getting close once again!
I managed to come away with a runner-up star with my photobooth hire service, while being a finalist in the wedding photographer and Videographer categories.
The way the ABIA Wedding Awards work is unique in that the awards are soley decided on the reviews recieved from previous wedding couples who have reviewd your services. Each couple give a score out of 100 in varying fields and it culminates into your final score.
In order to qualify as a finalist in the yearly awards, a wedding supplier must earn an overall score of over 95%, so just managing to be a finalist means that your couples have been absolutely estatic with your work – it merely comes down to some scores in the 99, and 98 range that decides the winner in each category.
It’s actually a little frustrating recieving an overall score of 98.69% for wedding photography, and 98.73% for wedding videography and still not winning the gold star in the 2022 SA ABIA Awards! But it just goes to show the amount of fantastic suppliers and competition out there in South Australia, and these scores mean that all my couples in the last year that voted are very pleased with my work! Which is the greatest award really.
Thankyou to all those who took the time to fill out the review form after every wedding – it’s the best thing in the world to hear such positive feedback from my couples and it keeps me going!
Particulary over the last few months where I’ve lost all my social media accounts due to identity theft and Facebook being Facebook. If you diddn’t know about that please do refollow me on my new social accounts! Means a lot!
