ANOTHER accolade has recently come the way of international award-winning Robe freelance photographer Jacqui Bateman.
She has won the Australian Council of Agricultural Journalism national star prize for excellence in rural photography.
Her winning photograph was of local grazier Tom Ellis and his three kelpie dogs at Coola Station in the Tantanoola/Kongorong district.
Judges praised the photograph as a classic Australian image of a man and his best friends.
The judges said the photograph had high technical excellence, being well composed and exposed, with a good choice of lens and settings to make the subject matter stand out.
First published in The Stock Journal, the photograph has earned Ms Bateman a $1000 cash prize from the journalism council.
Ms Bateman is a previous International Federation of Agricultural Journalists world star prize winner from 2017 with her photograph of a naked shearer dubbed The naked gun.
Her latest winning photograph will now compete in the world star prize awards to be judged at the 2019 International Federation of Agricultural Journalists World Congress in Minnesota, USA in July.
Ms Bateman said the winning photograph came during an assignment at Coola Station late last year when asked to capture images of Mr Ellis in his everyday work on the property.
“It was shot in the middle of the day in harsh light with some tricky shadows,” Ms Bateman said.
“The photograph was published in The Stock Journal making it eligible for the annual Rural Media SA awards last December.
“It won the state award for the ‘people’ category and I got a phone call last week to say it also won the Australian Council of Agricultural Journalism national award for both the ‘people’
category as well as the overall award for the nation’s best rural photograph.”
As a coincidence, Ms Bateman was in Minnesota in 2018 and intends to return there in July for the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists awards ceremony.
