Sydney Life
Night: Heading north across the shadowy harbour bridge, the oversize figure is striding toward you; any minute you will collide. Striking olive features are lit with a greenish cast. His piercing gaze and icy whites look straight through the camera lens. Wild dark curls grey at the temples. His left hand is in the pocket of his suit jacket, while his collar and trench blow free Cary-Grant-style; or should that be Scary Grant.
Winning Photograph - The Bride, Tamara Dean
An advertising man who has just lost his major contract or, an Opera House conductor sacked for drinking?
This is Sydney as you’ve never seen it before. It is also one of the reasons why this dark, enigmatic picture Project X—3 by Ross Honeysett, won the Sydney Life photographic prize in 2008.
Sandy Edwards, Curator at Stills Gallery in Sydney and one of three judges this year, has curated the exhibition since it’s inception in 2002. “Well 2008 was quite a dark year, reflecting the mood then”.
An important component of the brief is that work submitted not be stereotypic, but rather engaging, intriguing and contemporary.
More challenging, both technically and conceptually, is the capacity of the submitted 35 mm image to be enlarged. The life-sized canvas banners are then hung along the main walkway of northern Hyde Park.
Julie Rrap, a credentialed Sydney artist on the judging panel for the first time
acknowledges that this is a very democratic competition.
“Often in photographic competitions only people with some the first time,
history or profile can enter. By nature this competition is very broad in consideration of how it might be represented. Initially we judges view the work blind and see no names.”
She also says that the first cull was relatively easy given the brief, however the next day much, much harder. Choosing Rrap says, “is a real response thing”.
Twenty-two finalists were chosen in August. Among them are The Bride by Tamara Dean, The Gamble Sistersby Fiona Morris and Sydney is Dawning on Me by Andrew Goldie.
Malcolm Smith, Program Manager at the Australian Centre for Photography and the third judge on the panel, comments on the diversity of subject matter.
“The 600 images we looked through included Sydney’s untold histories,
obscure and outrageous personalities, hidden secrets and - of course - the iconic locations.”
The entrants comprise artists, commercial and professional photographers, students and the general public. Edwards says however, “If later you look at the people that get selected, you find that most of them are intentionally artists in some way. They are either at art school or have been to art school, or they are commercial photographers who are wanting to be more than that.”
The photographic exhibition is part of Sydney’s largest public art festival Art & About, a City of Sydney initiative, running from the 1st to the 29th of October.
AMP Capital Investors has been the principal sponsor since the Festival’s inception. Currently it contributes half of the $10,000 prize for Sydney Life.
Introduced in the last few years is a People’s Choice Award, garnering a $3,000 prize of Fujifilm Australia product.
Highly commended - Black diggers service, Amanda James
Another significant change to the formula over time has been the illumination
of the work via lanterns and the amalgamation of the Night Noodle Markets to the Hyde Park venue.
Edwards thinks this is brilliant as it means we can celebrate the evenings as well in a 24 hour-a-day exhibition.
“A lot of the success of this exhibition has to do with the venue. It is stunning.I hadn’t appreciated Hyde Park as much until we began exhibiting there.Standing there giving talks; seeing all the brides coming through; the runners…everybody.”
The accessibility, diversity of interpretation and idiosyncracies revealed in the images, make this a culturally important event for Sydneysiders.
Edwards concludes, “We are somehow trying to key into a more underground psyche of what you may find in Sydney and therefore I’d like the it (the competition) to remain broad and amorphous.”
To view all the Sydney Life finalists click here
By Deborah Taylor
