Why are you needing to prune? Too big for space?

You can hard prune camellia and they always respond well, i would suggest though pruning back a few selcted stems in the first year and then in the second year come down on the rest by which time the first years growth has grown up, and you will at least have some flowers in this two year pruning plan, i adopt this method on camellias with good effect, however if the camellia is really overgrown then i adopt renovation pruning which means cutting really hard back, but a word of caution this method i prefer to do directly after flowering in doing it has plenty of time for the new growth to toughen up, if you prune now then new shoots shall be seen in aprox 4/5 weeks then they will grow to aprox5/6inchs and will need time to toughen up so carefull thought is needed as we are aproaching august, and if we have a harsh winter then the shoots may not have hardened off enough, eg july 29th 2010 selective pruning of camellia, plenty of new shoots but by this january all completely burnt by the hard frosts but has since reshooted and looks quite healthy, so if we have a severe winter which it looks as though we are then you may like to wait till next spring, keep the camellia well watered.