Creations from her art and soul
By Jennifer Champan, first published in the Fraser Coast Chronicle, 2010
Jocelyn, your next-door neighbour, is an accomplished artist and photographer yet her modesty is so great, not many of us would ever have known.
That is if she didn’t allow her arm to be twisted so her talents could be revealed to the Fraser Coast.
Photojournalist Jocelyn Watts was given her first camera – a Box Brownie – when she was eight years old. Just three years later, she won her first prize at a regional photography show.
Since then, she has rarely been seen without a camera in her hands.
“For me, photography is about capturing moments in time,” explains the Maryborough resident of 18 years.
“Including,” she adds, “the ever-changing light in landscapes, fleeting moments in sport or at family gatherings and social events – things that happen too quickly to be captured with an artist’s brush.
“A camera lens can also block out peripheral objects to home-in on patterns, shapes and colours, as in microphotography, that could otherwise be missed by the naked eye.”
Jocelyn enjoys snapping travel experiences, sports, people, nature, landscapes and architecture.
She has always used Canon equipment and recently upgraded to a Canon EOS 5D Mark II and a 17-40mm wide-angle lens (EF Series).
Jocelyn is a member of the Hervey Bay Photography Club and the Australian Photographic Society.
“My goal is basically to keep on improving and create the best images I can. If a travel company offered to pay all my expenses, take photos and write, I wouldn’t argue,” she laughs.
“But being more realistic, it would be nice to show my images in an exhibition or coffee table books, or calendars someday. Bagging a few awards, if I were lucky enough, would be a bonus.”
Jocelyn has already won many awards including the photography club’s Colour Print of the Year for 2009.
In 2003, she swept the pool at the Australian Photographic Society B9 Print folio awards with five first places in Open Print categories.
Between 1998 and 2009 she added to her collection of another four first prizes at the Fraser Coast Show.
And in 1999, Jocelyn took home the Qld Country Press Association Awards title of Sport Photo of the Year.
She has also been honoured with international recognition in the prestigious Black and White Spider Awards.
Jocelyn’s creative (photography) flare was no doubt inherited from her father, an international award-winning photographer, who gave her that beloved Box Brownie.
Your neighbour, the artist
But it is not only photography this artist is skilled at.
“I’ve always drawn, sketched or dabbled in some sort of art or craft. Art was not a subject at the outback school I went to, but soon after leaving, I enrolled in an oil painting workshop being run at the town’s cultural centre that my parents co-founded.
“During the 1980s I designed motifs that I machine-appliquéd to T-shirts, tops and cloth nappies.
“After moving to Maryborough in the early 1990s, I was working part-time and in my spare hours delved into painting again, this time with pastels and acrylics as well as oils.”
Jocelyn describes her style as realism but wants to move toward impressionism.
“I’d be great at counterfeit if I had the inclination to make a few bucks on the black market,” she jokes. Seriously though, reproductions could be a speciality.”
Jocelyn has not yet held a solo exhibition, for art or photography, but is hopeful that day won’t be too far away.”
***
UPDATE: Jocelyn held her first photography exhibition, Ex Post Facto Collection, at Gatakers Artspace in Maryborough, Queensland, in July 2019.