I’ve said it eight times before … and now year number 9 !
Under the tutelage of the visual arts teachers at Trinity Bay High School, Cairns … these teen photography students are amazing.
For the past eight years of judging I’ve been fascinated and oft times stunned by the effort and creativity that these high school students put into their annual photographic portrait prize entries.
This year was definitely no exception … and the rivalry and quality of their works were closer than ever. The 58 images they produced ranged from sultry classical black and white portraits to seriously colourful photographic abstract representations … and just about everything in between. Great to see that almost everyone had moved away from the ‘snap’ shot and constructed their entries with great thought, a story line and a connection to their subject … with a dose of photographic skill mixed in.
It took me overnight to make the judging decision … and separating the top three contenders was a torturous task. Eventually I settled on these (below … from top then left to right).
Overall Winner – Jesse Boyle with ‘Lostin’ ‘ … 2nd Prize – Antonia Kaufmann with ‘Shadows of Thoughts’ … 3rd Prize – Zane Thaddeus MacFarlane with ‘Bro Sobbing’ … Highly Commended X 3 – Azuma Said with ‘Echoes of Emptiness’, Maddalena Scalco with ’The Smile of 90 Years of Happiness’ and Jean Paul itembaya with ‘Past Reflections’. The Peoples Choice Award went to Theris Vakaruru with ‘Dallas’.
Jesse’s enigmatic subtle winning portrait caught the eye … and just clung on to it … and he was deservedly presented with a Canon 1500D DSLR with a 18-55mm lens sponsored by Garricks Camera House. (Of note was Maddalena’s ‘The Smile of 90 Years of Happiness’ work. Despite lacking some technicality and compositional skill it was an image that couldn’t help but make you smile 🙂 )
I’ll let you make up your own mind about these great portraits (below) created by the talented Trinity Bay High School students.
You can view all the TBHS students winning works from the past eight years by clicking here…2023 … 2022 … 2021 … 2020 … 2019 … 2018 … 2017 … 2016 …
Bring on the decade in 2025 😉
Images © the student artists … Jesse Boyle, Antonia Kaufmann, Zane Nguyen-Pung, Azuma Smid, Maddalena Scalco, Jean-Paul Itembaya, Theris Vakaruru .
