SUMMARY OF THE XXVI AEFONA’S CONGRESS 2018

We have just returned home from this year’s AEFONA congress, and we are very happy to have shared lots of beautiful moments with friends and colleagues for a long weekend.

The XXVI AEFONA congress was held in Valdellòs i Hospitalet de l’Infant (Spain) last weekend and there we enjoyed activities and talks for three days, 6-8 of December.

The first day, Thursday the 6th of December, started - as always - with the General Annual Assembly for our members, and this year it was very special since AEFONA’s board has changed. The board team leaded by Pablo Bou have left after four years of amazing work, and the new board lead by the new president, Miguel Ángel Pedrera, was voted and elected.

After this, the program started with the talk of the association Young Nature Photographers, who came to present the international community of young nature photographers, and they presented the work of one of the young members of the community, Arnau Pou.

Later that morning we enjoyed the talk by Fran Parody, Foxes, a look at their privacy: Silacea project, and after we could listen to José Luis Gómez de Francisco, who presented his book 35 years of photos on the backpack.

The afternoon continued with the talks of the Catalan Society of nature photographers (SCFN) and the Spanish Photography Confederation (CEF).

Later, we enjoyed the talk by Uge Fuertes, with the presentation of his new book Imagining worlds, and after him, we listened to the talk by Javier Puertas, Photographic Nature; followed by the last talk by Oriol Alamany and Eulàlia Vicens, After the trail of the snow leopard.

On Friday the 7th we started early morning with a photographic activity outdoors at sunrise in one of the iconic places in town, the beach of Torn.

Once back at the auditorium, we started the second day watching the audio-visuals by AEFONA members, we talked about the news for this coming year and we got to know our sponsors this year, which are: Arcadina, FotoRuanoPro, Eltima, Olympus, Fujifilm, Akashi Travel, Photopills, PhotoLogistisc, FotoK, Kamera, EGM, Canson, Ajuntament de Vandellòs i Hospitalet de l’Infant.

Later the same morning we continued with the talk by Óscar Díez, Time is what it is, followed by Mario Suárez with his talk on Artistic bird photography.

We finished the morning with the presentation of the award-winner for the Conservationist Photographer of the Year 2018, prize awarded by AEFONA. And the winner for the 2018 edition is Jaime Culebras for his project “Ecuador, the biodiversity in extinction”   

After the lunch break, we enjoyed the talk by Pere Soler, Bird’s eye view, followed by the presentation of Ramiro Díaz’s personal project, Once upon a time there was a mouse, and J.B. Ruiz’s personal projects, Nature video with drone.

The afternoon was closed by the award-winner of the contest Conservationist Photographer of the Year (FCA), Jaime Culebras, who presented us his talks Ecuador, a megadiverse country and Loosing the biodiversity in Ecuador.

We started the last day of the congress with a new outdoor photographic activity at dawn, this time to enjoy the beach of Torn, emblematic landscape of Vandellòs i l’Hospitalet de l’Infant, from another perspective.

Once we all gathered again in the auditorium we listened to the presentations by Juanjo Peñafiel, From the invisible to the visible and by Ilñaki Relanzón, From Malvinas to Galápagos: the wild archipelagos.

The last talk was given by the Portuguese photographer Ricardo Lourenço, who showed us two presentations: the first by the collective to which he belongs with three other photographers, Alentejo Salvaje, and the second his personal work, Realces.

All this without forgetting our fantastic exhibition, which this year took the title Our magic nature, and contributed to this magnificent weekend.

And as always, receiving the newly printed IRIS with the work of our members is always a very emotional part of our congresses.

Thanks to everyone for another year!

Hi, everyone!

Yes, we know Christmas is around the corner, but we just wanted to let you know that our friends from the Slovenian Nature Association are having a

photo contest in the beginning of next year.

The contest Magical Nature/The nature Photography of the Year is open to amateur as well as professional photographers from around the world.

You have time to present your photographs until February 17^th next year, 2019.

The competition is now open! Go to the link bellow and entry your photos!

http://photonature.si/contest.html

Wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

IFWP CONGRESS REPORT

GOTLAND, SWEDEN, 22 - 26 AUGUST 2018

Our congress took place in a beautiful place plenty of photo opportinities. We have to thank all the efforts made by our secretary, Anita Campbell to make it possible and well organized.

Five days plenty of activities, convivence, friendship, landscape...making the most of surises and sunsets.

Before the congress we received many General Assembly documents completed with the votes and proposals for IFWP, so we had a meeting to inform about the results and decissions for the future.

 RESULTS OF THE ONLINE GENERAL ASSEMBLY

Provide more information about:
-The budget for USB present for last congress.
-The conservation project.
-Members that do not have an administrator for the facebook webpage.

MAJORITY DECISSIONS:

-No change of name.
-Change the treasury system.
-Category in our competition with digital manipulation.
-Allow cropping in our competition to a maxximum of 3.500 px.

ANSWER TO THE CONSULTS

-The budget for USB present for 2017 congress. Every year the board wills to thank all our members that effort coming to the congress by giving a gift. This items serve also to represent us, given to sponsors and everywhere we have a meeting about conservation agreements and other representative matters. Last year it was an USB pendrive marked in laser IFWP in green colour that costed 918 euro. We made 1.200 units and we have 982 that will last some years. This year present has been a soft lens cleaner cloth in green colour, printed IFWP. We made 200 and the cost was 94 euro.

-The conservation project. We discuss about this project in our congress and informed about its basement. Very soon a large pdf with all details will reach our members and published in our media. Basically is a campaign with different photo equipment brands and dealers to distribute a foldable brochure to promote the respect to  nature from some of our most renown nature and conservation photographers in IFWP.

-Members that do not have an administrator for the facebook webpage. Please write an email to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

NEXT IFWP STEPS

We had a fast and positive response from our members in Sweden, Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Cornwall, France and Spain and some of the GA documents arrived later. Our main works this year are:

-Change the economic system.
-Start our big conservation project.
-Keep our competition and congress dates.
-Get our members more involved.

PRESENTIAL BOARD MEMBERS IN THE CONGRESS

Campbell, Anita. Secretary.
Hermansen, Pal. Vicepresident.
Westh Hansesn, Svend Erik. Treasurer.
Pesjak, Carlo. Vocal.
Ruiz, Jose B. President.

RECIENT NEWS

There is a new initiative to add to hides for conservation from SAM, a foundation to buy land in Menorca island for a wildlife and autoctonous horses sanctuary. We will start helping the founders by sepetember 2018.

We are looking for a new competition manager so that the last volunteers can join the competition. We have asked about in the Gereral Assembly document. There is a compensation as having free accommodation in our congress. A B plan is to fix the volunteering for 4 years and offer some expenses or compensation.

This year we will delay the dates waiting for proposals from our members. There should be a fixed budget for congress every year to help organizers 1.000 euro. 2019 IFWP Congress. We expect to have proposals from our members for 2019. Cornwall will be the proposal for 2020, kidly offered from our member Cornwall Wildlife Trust.

Anita Campbell, our secretary, has been judge in Montphoto competition and lecturer in Montphoto Fest 2018. She had a great success.