Four photographers were named in the Head On Portrait prize last night in Sydney at the Festival's opening at Customs House. The three joint portrait prize winners are:

Chris Budgeon
Tracey Nearmy
David Manley

The Critic's Choice, chosen by Robert McFarlane, was a photograph by Louise Whelan (see winners below). 

Hundreds turned out for the Portrait Prize announcement last night filling the cavernous, multi-level Customs House. Head On has outgrown its original opening venue, Australian Centre of Photography (ACP) showing how much traction, and cache, this Festival has gained in a few short years - this year more than 200 shows are on exhibition at more than 100 venues over the month-long Festival.  With a Festival this big in a city the size of Sydney, for us out-of-towners it is not possible to get to everything of interest, but over this weekend I will be seeing, and reporting on, as much as possible. 

David Alan Harvey, Magnum Photos, officially opened the Festival and announced the winners, although the size of the gathering and the acoustics made it hard to hear what any of the speakers were saying despite amplification. Harvey will run workshops while he is in Sydney and there is a comprehensive seminar programme starting today at Bondi Pavilion. 

Festivals like Head On demonstrate how much talent, creativity, courage and ingenuity exists in photography today. There is clearly a deep love of, and for the medium. The discussion around technology no longer seems as important.

The winning photographs from top: Chris Budgeon, Tracey Nearmy, David Manley, Louise Whelan.

Head On Opens Tonight Sydney

Head On Festival opens tonight at Customs House. Magnum Photos' David Alan Harvey will officially open the festival at 7pm with the Head On Portrait Prize Winners announced at 8pm. Guests are flying in from around the country, and further afield, to attend. The rain has passed and Sydney is glittering in the autumn sun.

Also opening tonight at Customs House are two exhibitions:

Alexia Sinclair, Homage
Jagath Deerasekara, Manuwangku: Under a Nuclear Cloud


Customs House, 231 Alfred Street Sydney

For more information about Head On click here

May is National Photography Month

According to Nikon, May is National Photography Month...

Here are some items that may be of interest:

Head On Festival opens Friday in Sydney - for more details click here. If you are in Sydney the weekend seminar programme is definitely worth attending.

Photographers Mike Langford and Jackie Ranken have launched a new eBook on how to shoot creative landscape photography - details here 

T&G has published Paul Blackmore's At Water's Edge "exploring the relationship between humanity and its most vital natural resource" - check it out at T&G

And on a water theme, John Ogden has released Saltwater People of the Broken Bays, a book that "explores the incredible history and natural beauty of the coastline between North Head and Barrenjoey" in Sydney. Check it out at Cyclops Press

Editions Bessard, who published Max Pam's Ramadan in Yemen,  will release a limited edition book of Wang Qingsong's works, a 9 meter accordion style publication with a copper cover. More details to come...

Head On Festival Opens Friday 4th May Sydney

Head On Festival in Sydney opens this Friday, May 4 at Customs House (7- 9pm) with the Head On Portrait Prize winners announced at 8pm.

Judges of the 2012 Portrait Prize include photographer Tamara Dean, Monash Gallery Director Shaune Lakin, ABC broadcaster Robbie Buck and Head On curator Moshe Rosenzveig. The ‘Critic’s Prize’ will chosen by photographer and critic Robert McFarlane.

Seminars Presentations Workshops

This year’s Festival features hundreds of exhibitions spread across numerous spaces. There is also a highly regarded Seminar Programme featuring local and international speakers including Magnum Photos' David Alan Harvey and Multi Award winning photographers - Australians Stephen Dupont and Andrew Quilty and from India, Pablo Bartholomew. Plus there are leading curators, festival directors, bloggers and others on the programme. It's a very exciting line up and provides a rare opportunity to explore international themes.

To find out more about Head On and its extensive programme please click here

And please look out for my feature on this year's Festival in a coming issue of Pro Photo magazine.

Maggie Diaz feature now on website

'Pearls and Gloves'. This photograph was taken by Maggie Diaz in Chicago in the late 1950s. This image, and others, feature in my profile on Maggie which is the cover story for the May issue of Pro Photo, on sale now. You can read the story in PDF format on my website Reality & Illusion

Maggie Diaz feature out now

My profile on Maggie Diaz is the cover story for May's issue of Pro Photo.  

The Canberra - Maggie arrived in Melbourne on the maiden voyage in 1961

(C) Maggie Diaz

Winner of Fotobook Dummy Award

"A remarkable body of work from Dagmar Keller and Martin Wittwer", 'Passengers', has won this year's Fotobook Dummy Award in Paris. The prize? A publishing contract with the German publisher Seltmann und Sohne.

A collaborative work, 'Passengers" was shot on location in Poland in the winter of 2011-2012.. The pair independently photographed the passengers at a main bus terminal in Kielce where dozens of regional lines originate. To see the winning book and read the full article visit Lightbox Time.

Winner: Passengers (C) Dagmar Keller and Martin Wittwer

The Girls of Chechnya - Diana Markosian

Twenty-two year old Diana Markosian is a Russian-born photographer who in November last year moved to Chechnya to progress her photo essay documenting the lives of girls living in this war-torn, and still extremely dangerous, country. The freedom we take for granted is definitely not present there...Check out the story and her photographs at Time Lightbox

"Khedi Konchieva, 15, goes on a date with her boyfriend in the village of Serzhen-Yurt. A couple on a date in Chechnya must meet in public and sit a few feet apart. Any form of intimate contact is forbidden; some young woman who have sex before marriage risk death at the hands of their family." Photography: Diana Markosian. Copy: Time Lightbox

Street Photography Sale Now On

PhotoVoice has organized an online sale of limited edition street photography. Sale started yesterday so get in quick. You can check out the work at PhotoVoice

PhotoVoice is a charity that works with marginalized communities “around the world to tell their own stories and represent themselves visually”. All proceeds from the street photography sale go towards PhotoVoice’s work.

There are some awesome photos, two I particularly like - the polar bear looking longingly at a cake shop window (Jo Paul Wallace), and the pigeon walking in Trafalgar Square (shown on the book cover below) by Matt Stuart.

Check out the book Street Photography Now by Sophie Howarth and Stephen McLaren available on Amazon.com

Great Photography Books from T&G Publishing

T&G is a boutique publishing house based in Sydney, Australia. Director Gianni Frinzi is incredibly passionate about photography and about producing beautiful books - many of T&G's titles will no doubt become collector's items.

My favorite T&G books, at the moment, are:

Martin Parr No Worries (read my article at Pro Photo Martin Parr)

Max Pam's Atlas Monographs (read my article at Pro Photo Max Pam)

I am planning to review the incredible collection of Lewis Morely's work - I to Eye, but in the meantime please check out T&G's website to view, and buy, this beautiful book (T&G Publishing).

Ramadan in Yemen - new book by Max Pam

"Ramadan in Yemen" documents photographer Max Pam's travels through this amazing country in the late 1990s. Max believes the journal he kept at this time is one of his best and this journal forms the heart to the book "Ramadan in Yemen" published by Éditions Bessard in Paris. The journal is full of jottings, notes, drawings and disjointed quotes that add to its ability to transport the viewer to that moment in time. Pam's journals give an insight into his creative processes and his photographs evoke the spirit and warmth of the people of Yemen.

The book is beautifully bound and comes in an exquisite box giving weight to the idea that this is definitely a collector's item. Published as a limited edition of 1000 copies, the first 250 books will be personally numbered, embossed and signed by Max. Congratulations to Pierre and his team at Éditions Bessard on publishing such a beautiful book.

Of "Ramadan in Yemen" Max Pam said: "What could I say about Yemen that did it justice. I tried in my journal to work it honestly. I tried with 60 rolls of black and white 120 film to translate the experience. That hot, spare and beautiful Ramadan. No eating or drinking anything between sunrise and sunset. The faithful waiting for the moment. The cannon booms from the mosque in the afterglow of the day. KABOUMMM and a frenzy of quat buying, tea drinking and food eating begins in the suqs and squares and oases and towns all over the country. Everyone is happy, elated, laughing and joking sitting down together as one nation. And you know what? People always wanted me to share and be part of their Ramadan, their community, their Yemen. I travelled all over the country with them. To Shibam, Taizz, Al Mukallah, Sanaa, over the desert, by the sea and into the mountains. The shared taxis were always a half past dead Peugeot 405’s with sometimes 10 or 12 people jammed in. The 92 pages of this book give my version of that unforgettable Ramadan month. An experience freely given to me by the generosity of Yemeni people".

Email Éditions Bessard to order your copy today  contact@editionsbessard.com  

All photography by Max Pam