Jamberoo photographer wins in Mono Awards

Local photographer Nic van Oudtshoorn was recognised with Highly Commended Awards for 2 of his images within the 2025 Australian Photography journal ‘Mono Awards’ competitors.

“I love black and white photos,” says van Oudtshoorn.

“It is the earliest form of photography, yet even in today’s world of colour, it can produce photos with amazing impact.”

Starting out from humble beginnings as a cadet journalist in South Africa for a day newspaper, van Oudtshoorn’s love of pictures was impressed from taking photographs for his tales when there wasn’t a photographer out there.

“I then transitioned into basically a photojournalist where I did both photography and reporting simultaneously,” he stated.

“I found that really gave me the opportunity to express both in words and in photography.”

Sharing tales which have spanned throughout his illustrious profession, van Oudtshoorn defined the numerous aspects of being a photojournalist.

“When you’re doing active journalism, you’re covering things like a riot and you’re covering police actions,” van Oudtshoorn stated.

“Obviously you take pictures as fast as you can because there’s the fleeting moment when things happen.”

Explaining the endurance that’s required when doing wildlife pictures would depart many reaching for one thing to do to move the time.

“When you’re doing things like wildlife photography, you must be willing to go and sit at a waterhole for six to seven hours waiting for something to happen because animals come at their own pace,” he stated.

“But you have to be ready all the time because, again, Henri Cartier-Bresson coined that phrase ‘the decisive moment’.

“That’s what you are really looking for.”

Having transitioned and developed from movie to digital, van Oudtshoorn explains the double-edged sword that hobbyists and professionals expertise with pictures.

“I think it’s tremendous that people have an opportunity now to just take a phone out of their pocket and they can record a moment,” van Oudtshoorn stated.

“They see a sunset or they can see a bird landing with a frog in its mouth – you can capture that moment.

“I think it’s progression and also, of course, a lot of people don’t realise [what] their phones can do these days – and the level of quality.”

Dedicating his career to passing on information, van Oudtshoorn teaches the unwritten elements of pictures equivalent to “the eye”.

“In fact, phones are so good, they can really do all the technical things for you,” he stated

Approaching Storm Photo: Nic van Oudtshoorn

“But if you don’t have the eye to see, [which] is one of the big things I teach, when I teach photography.”

Another element of photojournalism is the significance of a caption, which van Oudtshoorn encourages aspiring photojournalists to buy a duplicate of the National Geographic journal.

“They [National Geographic] employ people specially just to write captions,” he stated.

“Most of us [photojournalists], when we write a caption, we look at the picture and then we write down what we see.

“You shouldn’t have to do that – viewer can see the picture. You have to write a caption that takes the picture, the viewer beyond that.”

Just final yr, van Oudtshoorn entered a global pictures competitors named reFocus Awards – World Photo Annual the place he gained the Photographer of the Year for a sequence of photographs taken by a microscope. 

The two photos van Oudtshoorn obtained the Highly Commended Awards for have been ‘Approaching storm’, which he describes as “a raptor racing to safety across a tempestuous sky in Jamberoo” and ‘What do you want’ which “captures a confrontation between Silver Gulls at the Kiama waterfront”.

Having labored for over 50 years as a journalist and a photographer, van Oudtshoorn has lived in Australia for the previous 46 years and teaches pictures at WEA Illawarra, St George & Sutherland Community College and Sydney Community College.

What would you like Photo: Nic van Oudtshoorn