… blimey … FORTY years ago as a young pup I was awarded my first photo prize as the (highly unexpected) winner of the “Australian Sports Photo of the Year” !
Sponsored by Kodak and Adidas in 1985, it was the inaugural edition of the awards celebrating Australia’s best sports images with a very large cash prize, a weeks holiday on the Gold Coast and photo product for the lucky winner … me ! 🙂 .
The announcement and prize presentation was televised from Melbourne as a part of the “Australian Sports Star of the Year” awards. I had to buy a suit and tie (and SHOES) to attend 😉 !
It was a massive shock to win, especially as the other two finalists were staff photographers from the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age (who weren’t too pleased that a little ‘nobody’ from tiny Cairns had pipped ‘em ).
The winning pic (below) of gun Cairns skier Steve Hook mid slalom on Trinity Inlet Cairns was made on film with a Nikon FM2 and a squeeze focus Novoflex 200mm lens. (I was long a big fan of the squeezey focus Novoflex glass … 200, 280, 400 & 600mm.)
My win was a catalyst for lots of interest from the news media and picture editors … and, in effect, was the precursor to the expansion of my photography into more challenging and rewarding press work and photojournalism.
This image was a feature of my 2017/2018 exhibition “A Photographer’s Life – Part One” and also features in my hard cover large format collectors book “A Photographer’s Life – Part One & Part Two” available here.
Many Thanks to Steve Hook, brother Howard and the others of the Cairns waterski fraternity of the time. Big Thanks also to John Croucher of the Cairns Yacht Club who nagged me incessantly to enter into a photo prize for the first time.
(Nb … if you fancy water skiing on Trinity Inlet in this day and age the crocodiles would make short work of you !)
Image © Brian Cassey @brian_cassey … Kodak/adidas Australian Sports Photo of the Year 1985
