portrait awards

‘Tears’ At The Perth IRIS Awards …

The ‘IRIS’ awards exhibition … an International biennial art prize acknowledging outstanding contemporary portraiture … opened in Perth on Friday eve at the Perth Centre for Photography Gallery. So pleased to see my ‘Finalist’ selected image “Tears for George Floyd … 8 Minutes and 46 Seconds” (top below) make it’s ‘on the wall’ debut in the fantastic exhibition. (Image © Brian Cassey @brian_cassey)

The award prides itself for “selecting revealing portraits that are unique, original and conceptually stimulating”.

Normally I’d be there at the opening … but no way could I travel early to endure a costly 14 day quarantine on top of airfares etc etc. 

The exhibition works were in the main, indeed, unique in many ways … a great exhibition to be part of.

As I couldn’t attend (thanks to covid), loverly Perth based photographer Andrea Vose very, very kindly sent me pics from the opening eve (below) illustrating my work as it sat on the exhibition walls. Thank You heaps Andrea !!

Images below … “Tears for George Floyd … 8 Minutes and 46 Seconds” © Brian Cassey … Images at Perth Centre for Photography Gallery © Andrea Vose

IRIS Award - for Contemporary Photographic Portraiture, Perth - 'Finalist' - 'Tears for George Floyd ... 8 Minutes and 46 Seconds' by Brian Cassey

IRIS Award - for Contemporary Photographic Portraiture, Perth - 'Finalist' - 'Tears for George Floyd ... 8 Minutes and 46 Seconds' by Brian Cassey

IRIS Award - for Contemporary Photographic Portraiture, Perth - 'Finalist' - 'Tears for George Floyd ... 8 Minutes and 46 Seconds' by Brian Cassey

 

A Portrait ‘Treble’ at the Australian Photography Awards …

At the risk of sounding monotonous and repetitive … my apologies for once again featuring these three of my portrait images … but …

… all three have just been selected as ‘Honourable Mention’ Finalists in the Portrait category of the 2019 ‘Australian Photography Awards’ … pretty gratified with that.

Each of the three images have been really good for me … previously and variously being ‘mentioned in dispatches’ in the ‘Portrait of Humanity 2019’, ‘Moscow International Foto Awards’, ‘Tokyo International Foto Awards’, ‘Head On Portrait Prize’, ’12th International Color Awards’ … and the soon to be officially opened ‘Fremantle International Portrait Prize’ and  ‘IRIS Portrait Prize’ in Western Australia.

Below are the three … “Generations Aurukun” featuring Aurukun elders Silas and Rebecca Wolmby with their twin great grand children … “Tomotaro on the Block’ of Japanese paralympic swimmer Tomotaro Nakamura at the 2018 Pan Pacific Para Games in Cairns … and “Victim of Sorcery – Dorcas” of ‘Sanguma’ (sorcery) victim Dorcas Numbi Nunugi recovering from a near fatal attack at a ‘safe house’ in Goroka, Papua New Guinea.

The ‘Australian Photography Awards’ exhibition opens at Sun Studios Melbourne on October 12th and runs until October 20th. Sadly, will miss the opening as have already committed to the ‘FIPP’ exhibition event in Fremantle on the same day.

Promise that I’ll soon shut up about these three pics … and concentrate on producing some new work 😉 .

Images © Brian Cassey

 

Three Honourable Mentions in Portrait Category of the Australian Photography Awards 2019 by Brian Cassey

Finalist in Martin Kantor Ballarat Tribute …

The Ballarat International Foto Biennale has been a fixture for Australian and International photographers and their audiences since 2005 … and the festival prides itself on “immersing the historic township in photographic art”. The 2017 program is expected to attract over 50,000 visitors during the month long festival from mid August.

This year they have also introduced an important new exhibit … the inaugural Ballarat International Foto Biennale Martin Kantor Prize … and I’m somewhat stoked to have been selected as one of the twenty eight Finalists.

The rationale of the prize is to recognise “portraiture of significant Australians” … and perhaps they don’t come much more ‘significant’ than my Finalist subject … Noel Pearson. I made the image of Noel whilst he was mesmerising an audience during one of his oratory triumphs at an indigenous convention in Port Douglas. The light was extremely low and the framing of the image was made ‘in camera’. (Image below)

I’m joined in the finalist selection but some of Australia’s very best photographic portraitists including George Fetting, Tamara Dean, Rod McNicol, Tobias Titz, Tony Kearney, David Darcy  … and the prize is a fitting tribute to the late Martin Kantor. a photographer and philanthropist who was known for his arresting portraits of famous musicians and artists.

The Martin Kantor Prize exhibition runs for the length of the festival … 19th August to 17th September … at Ballarat Town Hall. The overall winner of the the $15,000 acquisitive prize will be announced at 2pm on the 20th August. Sadly I doubt if I will be able to get there to see it.

Image of Noel Pearson © Brian Cassey

Ballarat International Foto Biennale Martin Kantor Prize - 'Noel Pearson' - by BRIAN CASSEY

Carol in Moscow … !

Real chuffed to learn overnight that my new and recent portrait of the amazin’, courageous and beautiful burns survivor Carol Mayer – entitled “The Skin I’m In” (below) – won a Second Place in the Portrait category of this years “Moscow International Foto Awards” (MIFA).

A buzz to once again be selected as a winner in the MIFA’s (last year it was a First Place in the ‘Moving Image’ category with the short film “Eyes – The Soul of a Photograph”) alongside much amazing photographic talent from around the planet. The MIFA’s this year attracted entries from a massive 85 countries. Some brilliant work listed amongst the winners this year … in particular … Mary F. Calvert and Michele Palazzo (USA), Sandra Hoyn and Tom Jacobi (Germany), Danillo Balducci (Italy), Younes Mohammad (Iraq), and Sergey Ponomarev (Russia) … and more.

I’m so, so grateful to Carol for fearlessly agreeing to pose as she did for me in this new portrait … I’ve had this image ‘in my head’ now for some time and it’s almost a relief to actually complete it and now be able to let it go. (It’s the second time that Carol has featured in the “Moscow International Foto Awards” … my portrait of Carol focused on her wonderful eyes from a few years back won an Honourable Mention in the 2014 ‘MIFA’ Portrait contest.)

“The Skin I’m In” … along with the other powerful winners work … will be shown at the Moscow Na Kashirke Gallery (Галерея “На Каширке”, Москва, ул.Ак.Миллионщикова, д.35, корп.5) from the 20th July till the 7th August.

Image © Brian Cassey 2016

"The Skin I'm In" - Carol Mayer Moscow International Foto ASwards - winner by Brian Cassey

 

Cairns to Sydney to Kuala Lumpur …

An event filled week ! Travelled back to Sydney to take in more of this years ‘Head On Photo Festival’, a bit of the ‘Reportage Photography Festival’, the first ‘Walkley Slide Night’ of 2013 … and … the opening at Global Gallery Paddington of my exhibition “The Aak Puul Ngantam Stockman”. 

Straight after exhibition opening eve it was off to Kuala Lumpur Malaysia for the exhibition and winners announcement at Galeri Petronas of the “2013 Kuala Lumpur International Portrait Awards”.

“The Aak Puul Ngantam Stockman” exhibition was obviously a highlight … and Global Gallery was chockers with media photographer colleagues, friends and many others enjoying the ‘hospitality’. Moshe Rosenzveig from Head On kindly arrived to give the opening address.

The exhibition comprised fourteen near metre high prints of the entire mustering crew of the indigenous operated APN Cape York operation … including stockmen young and old, helicopter pilot, cook, junior Jillaroos, teacher … even newcomer stockman journalist Michel McKenna (who made the trip from Brisbane for the opening to admire his ‘visage’ !)

The “2013 Kuala Lumpur International Portrait Awards” was also a fantastic exhibition … well worth the effort and some fantastic work adorning the walls of Galeri Petronas under the twin towers … including my selected finalist image “Roustabout” of APN’s versatile do-it-all guy Perry Ward.

Printed almost two metres high on beautiful canvas and displayed spotlighted on a massive black wall, “Roustabout” certainly had the ‘wow’ factor as you entered the gallery! (see image below). Unfortunately it wasn’t selected as a top three winner. The winning image of a street band certainly was a very special image. Not so sure about second and third selected images tho’!

Below is a pic of the “Roustabout” image as it was displayed in KL … and a couple of pics from the Global Gallery  APN exhibition opening eve in Paddington.

© images Brian Cassey

Ex Cairns Australia pic by Brian CasseyPic by Brian Cassey

APNEx3s copy

APNEx2s copy