Sydney, Australia: Head On Photo Festival, Australia’s leading annual photography event, launched Friday, 19 November and announced the winners of the 2021 Head On Photo Awards across three categories Landscape,Portrait and Student photography. The annual Awards offer a prize-pool of $70,000 and provide a reward platform for professional and amateur photographers around the world.

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Judged anonymously by a panel of internationally recognised photographers, editors and leading industry professionals, the 2021 Head On Photo Award Winners are as follows: Australian photographer Aletheia Casey for the Landscape Award, British photographer Gideon Mendel for the Portrait Award and Australian photographer Chege Mbuthi for the Student Award.

Aletheia Casey’s winning work, A lost place, is a personal reaction to the Australian fires of 2019/2020, which almost destroyed her family home. She said: “Although I have lived much of my adult life abroad, Australia is, and always will be, my home. As I watched the fires from London, feeling powerless to help family and friends, I painted on prints from my last time in Australia with oils and inks. I reworked them in an attempt to implant my fear and powerlessness into the imagery.”

Runners up for the Landscape Award are Australian photographer Raoul Slater with his work Kangaroo Court and Mexican photographer Juan Carlos Pinto Márquez with his work Petals swarm. Gideon Mendel’s winning work, Jenni Bruce at her burnt home in Upper Brogo, New South Wales, January 2020, is similarly a result of the 2019/2020 bushfires, taken at the destroyed home of sculptor Jenni Bruce, who said: “... it was all gone. I had a great workshop with tools that I had spent a lifetime gathering. I had a huge collection of paints and canvases, and I was working on a new body of work to exhibit.

It was just devastating to lose that amount of hard work... I wish the people in power would listen; I wish they would stop using industries that are so bad for our environment.” Runners up for the Portrait Award are Australian photographer Mark Forbes for his work Perfect Stranger and Irish photographer Joseph-Philippe Bevillard’s Donoghue brothers, Galway, Ireland.

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Chege Mbuthi’s winning work, By the front door, was captured during last year’s lockdown. He commented: “As I found myself with more spare time, I began to experiment further with my portrait photography. As the name states, I took the shot at the front of my home, which has beautiful soft light filtered through one window, which fell upon my silhouette. The simplicity of the image, combined with the minimal colour, created an aesthetically pleasing image.” Runners up for the Student Award are Australian photographers Holly Houssarini for her work Contemplation and Leila Edelstein for her work The girl and the cat that died. Exhibitions featuring the winners and finalist works for each category will be presented as part of the 2021 Head On Photo Festival.

The Festival hub along Bondi Beach Promenade includes 48 exhibitions spanning 600 meters extended to 30 January. Further 12 free shows at Paddington Reservoir Gardens open until 19 December (visit headon.com.au for opening hours) Festival Director Moshe Rosenzveig OAM said: “The Head On Photo Awards are integral to what we do and are an incredible showcase of talent from photographers from all around the world. We’ve been so impressed with this year’s submissions and are delighted to announce the winners. “We’re thrilled to launch the 2021 Festival and showcase some of the projects we’ve been working on over the past 18 months, including First Sight, Australia’s first ever mentorship program of emerging First Nations photographers which has culminated in a fantastic exhibition. We hope everyone can come along to see the exhibitions and join us for our program of workshops and talks to develop their photographic skills.”

The Festival will continue to follow the NSW Health advice regarding COVID-19 restrictions and encourages visitors to monitor their social media channels and website for updates.

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For more information about select events visit www.headon.com.au.

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