| Brian Cassey Photographer Cairns Australia

… a ten year milestone …

Have just had the great pleasure once again … for the tenth year … of judging the annual Trinity Bay High School photographic Portrait Prize … and what a show it was.

Back in 2016 I selected the work “Shades” by then 14 year old TBHS student Matthew Hastie as the portrait prize winner … hard to believe he’d now by knocking on the age of 24 !

In the intervening years I’ve been fascinated and oft times stunned by the photography produced by this schools visual arts students … a testament to their dedicated and enthusiastic teachers. Each year the newest crop of students step up and produce both thoughtful and quality portraits making the winners selections a difficult task. This year was certainly no exception …

Ultimately I selected the work “Hood Rat” (top below) by Tyquon Prasad O’Brien as this years winner … a beautifully composed and produced portrait that spoke of the seeming fragility of being a teenager in today’s world. Tyquorn was presented with a Nikon Z mirrorless camera kindly sponsored by Camera House.

Just behind Tyquon’s work was Sujan Rai’s portrait of subject Paula Moana Schwertfeger channeling “Taylor Swift” … a technically brilliant portrait based on a ‘Swiftie’ album cover. Sujan was presented with a polaroid camera. (More on album covers below … 🙂 ).

Also recognised were two Highly Commended portraits … “Twins” by Nyota Asumani Lufugula and “Motown Vibes” by Keanu Sudiana … great works both. I also found myself drawn to an emotive and different portrait on the wall by Lillian Orr entitled “Our Last Sunrise”. Something resonated with me and it turned out that the back story to the image was both emotional and very personal. It certainly deserves to be recognised.

The new ‘Junior’ category was won by Eva Nomotu for a nice portrait of her mother … ‘Peoples Choice’ went to Ally Payett for the ‘Wolf’ portrait … and the ‘Staff’ winner was Virgil Gill’s work “Kilth”.

Which brings to this years new innovation … a special project posed to the students to visually recreate music album covers ! Using photography and editing software the students created around sixty ‘takes’ on original CD covers … many technically great, some highly amusing and collectively a fantastic show. (see bottom image below for part of it). I selected the diptych by Aniisa Idai as the best in show, but in all honesty all the works were really all highly competent and highly entertaining ! (Especially liked ‘Kiss’, ‘The Group Fire’, ‘Fake it Flowers’ and, of course, ‘Amy Winehouse’ !)

The work presented at the show is a testament to the amazing talents of TBHS visual arts teachers … Janelle Williams, Caroline Mudge, Luke Marsden, Clair Lloyd and Melanie Tuxworth … the students are indeed lucky to have you. Take a bow …

You can view all the TBHS students winning works from the previous nine years by clicking here … 2024 … 2023 … 2022 … 2021 … 2020 … 2019 … 2018 … 2017 … 2016 …

Below … images from top and left to right © by … Tyquon Prasad O’Brien, Sujan Rai, Nyota Asumani Lufugula, Keanu Sudiana, Lillian Orr, Ally Payett, Eva Nomotu, Brian Cassey

Once again … for the fourth year … had the pleasure last week of judging the work of photography students at the Trinity Bay High School Cairns annual portrait photography prize.

This year the exhibition walls at the school were covered in around seventy works … significantly more than previous years … made by students from grades 7 through to 12. For the first time more than one major prize was on offer … an overall ‘Best in Show’ and Junior (grades 7 to 10) and Senior (grades 11 and 12) Winners prizes.

‘Best in Show’ was a ‘no brainer’ … Lou Vang’s brilliant and highly technical portrait “True Self” (top below) demanded your attention with a mesmerising stare which followed you around the room. Lou focused critically on the most important point of the image … the eyes. A portrait that would stand on it’s own anywhere. Lou was awarded a Nikon D3500 courtesy of Garricks Camera House.

The Junior and Senior prizes, however, were a lot harder to decide upon. Following a fair bit of agonising I settled on the Junior winner … Kelli Baker’s creative “Fragmented” (bottom below) just getting the nod over Holly Koch’s dark brooding “Arinar in Shadow” (second from top below). The Senior decision was just as difficult but eventually settled on Marcus Pedro’s “Time to Destroy” (right – third from top) over Kayla Allan’s “Kales” (left – third from top).

Two others received ‘Highly Commended’ awards … Georgia Willis for “Windswept” in the Juniors and Tarik Clarke for “Denied” in the Seniors. Visitors to the exhibition voted “Saturated Vibrance” by Chantelle as the ‘Peoples Choice’ winner.

Another great exhibition by photography students at Trinity Bay … and a testament to the quality of the arts and photography teaching staff of Dan, Jim, Nina, Ian et al. Refreshing to see this dedication to the photographic arts.

Links to previous years winners and works can be found here … 2018, 2017, 2016.

Trinity Bay High School Photographic Portrait Prize - Winner - Mugshot by Lou Vang

Trinity Bay High School Photographic Portrait Prize - Arinar in Shadow by Holly Koch

Trinity Bay High School Photographic Portrait Prize - Images by Kayla Allan and Marcus Pedro

Trinity Bay High School Photographic Portrait Prize - Junior Winner - Fragmented by Kelli Baker

Ten Years ! … Trinity Bay High School Portrait Prize …

Winning Portraits By Trinity Bay HS Students …