Rural Press Winner …

Whilst in Brisbane to talk at the launch of the Nikon Walkley Press Photography Exhibition (see post here) I also took time out to accept an invitation to attend a Rural Press Club lunch at the venerable Tattersalls Club.

A very nice lunch it was too … made even more enjoyable by the announcement that one of my images was a ‘Winner’ in the ‘Excellence in Rural Journalism Awards 2015’ in the Photography Landscape & Nature category.

The annual awards celebrate the work of journalists and photographers working on stories of a rural nature. The work of winners in Queensland then progress to Australia wide awards and, if then successful, to the IFAJ (International Federation of Agricultural Journalists) awards. (In 2012 one of my images taken after Cyclone Yasi won the Queensland, Australian and International awards in the ‘People’ category.)

The winning image this year (below) was made during the coverage of Cyclone Ita’s passage across the Cooktown area of north Queensland in April 2014 and show’s the aftermath of the cyclone’s total destruction of banana crops at the indigenous community of Hopevale. (Coincidentally I have only just returned from another trip to Hopevale where I documented the latest cyclone damage to the banana crop by Cyclone Nathan).

The pic – which shows Chief Banana Packer at the Hopevale Banana venture Phyllis Gibson carrying felled fruit watched by her grandson Dwayne Bowen – was published on page 1 of The Australian on 14th April 2014 (as shown on the newspaper grab below)

Images © Brian Cassey 2014

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