Artist Statement

Shellharbour scuba diving with Grey Nurse Sharks. I found diving and photography perfect for relaxation. When you move elegantly and slowly, flowing physically in water, your mind flows with positive feelings and energy. Also, snapping images of nature is a very relaxing and calming activity for me. My world outlook changed and a feeling of what is happening around me. My photo projects can show my feelings, the beauty of a woman's body and the beauty of nature: a sense of peace and tranquillity.

Artist Statement

Driving along the road I happened to see this desolate spot between road and rail. I stopped the car, grabbed my husband, and a newspaper from the backseat and placed them in this incongruous setting. Hopefully this spontaneous, lighthearted photo represents the surreal life we have all lived in 2020. The headline of the paper, "Planning for light at end of tunnel", indicating a brighter, more optimistic future

Artist Statement

Nature is characterised by its fragility, yet pervasive interactivity. Its equilibrium can be undermined and disturbed so easily by human intervention. With a greater understanding of nature’s nuances, mankind can learn to co-exist in harmony.

Artist Statement

To capture the wind, a series of shots was taken rapidly and arranged in a composite. The result was a surprisingly beautiful arrangement of wind turbine flowers. Who said renewables weren't beautiful!

Artist Statement

2020 produced some real moments. In Utah, a stainless steel monolith was discovered, reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 Space Odyssey Monolith. This sparked a rash of sightings around the world. Unlike the majority of monoliths, the one that appeared near Anna Bay NSW was completely, unreflectively, pitch black. Virtually no light reflected from it and it was solid to touch. A genuine mystery, and a challenge to my camera's sensor.

Artist Statement

Viewed from above, these enormous salt lakes defy the minds ability to perceive scale. The colous and pattern have been likened to patio or bathroom tiles, anthough at hundreds of metres across, they would have to be the patio of a god.

Artist Statement

"Transcendence” from the series Edge explores moments of isolation, dislocation, stillness and silence, anxiety and insecurity; and ultimately reflects on the beauty and purity of being in such a fragile, transient state. The imagery depicts a moment of suspended drama, which also alludes to the metaphor of the human condition, being pushed to mental and emotional limits, a person on the edge. Does the figure surrender to the pressure and step off, or recognise the adrenaline fuelled state of danger, find strength and resilience and step back and move on? The Edge is ephemeral, the decision...

Artist Statement

Millie was born with Optic Nerve Hypoplasia. We have little understanding of the blindness she experiences. She often hold her hand close to her face, as if searching for vision of her fingers. Her hand will become a comprehending hand, her eyes to read, feel and experience her world. Embossed onto this image is a message to Millie in uncontracted Braille. As her comprehending hand develops, she will read this message, the only part of this print she will ever experience. How much we take for granted - this gift of sight.

Artist Statement

We walked amongst the grave stones and looked at the names and dates. I saw myself reflected through the viewfinder of my camera. Suddenly I became part of the tombstone. My image was close to the name of the person whose name appeared below and one day it would be my time. For now, I had a companion.

Artist Statement

For Victorians, the majority of 2020 was spent in lockdown; looking at the same landscape each day. The work Into the Land explores the landscape and how it can be viewed in a different way; investigating the duality of feeling safe within the same landscape but yet wanting to escape over the hills into the distance to see what lies beyond the horizon.

Artist Statement

No matter how much darkness we sink into, there is always the slightest glimmer of light. Sadly, for some, the light is impossible to find, for some it is not always easy and they need someone or something to show them the way and for others it is in plain sight. But once found, it must be clung onto and become the focus of attention for it to flourish, blossom and consume the darkness.

Artist Statement

Traces of beauty exist everywhere around us. The image shows that this can be found just around the corner in all of our daily lives, there is no need to travel to an exotic location to find them. Many people however may not see the beauty in the ordinary, either being too busy, caught up in their daily hustle, or have simply just not spent the time looking to appreciate the details of everyday ordinary spaces and surrounds. Sometimes all we may need is the time and space - physical and emotional - to be able to pause to experience them.

Artist Statement

This image was taken during Melbourne's 112 day hard lock down due to Covid19 in 2020. The concept behind the image is a playful expression of the frustration and boredom that children faced during the lengthy confinement. I had the idea for this in my mind for a few months before I was able to make the image. The photograph was taken on medium format film, which I find is an integral part of my creative process.

Artist Statement

I’ve always been interested in exploring the intriguing relationships between conscious awareness, the sub-conscious, ‘dream states’, and ‘stream of consciousness’. Some conceptual artists believe that "art is created by the viewer, not by the artist or the artwork. Or, all planning decisions are made beforehand, the execution is perfunctory". What if the conceptual work was about suspending the certainty of conscious control? In my ‘Ribbon Series's post-production, images became independent, remaking themselves, revealing different subjects, emotions and words. Colour, dark, deep, breathless. Embraces completely, cold slow flowing deep ice-water. Faint light shafts catch drifting lines.

Artist Statement

COVID Balloons considers those events that might have been during the COVID lockdowns in Melbourne. Those events are referred to using the device of a helium balloon emblazoned with messages usually accompanied by parties, well wishes, friends and family. The empty urban landscapes, balloon and absence of people causes us to wonder what may have been.

Artist Statement

Constructed Landscapes is an exploration of the traditions of picturesque landscape images and how those traditions still inhabit modern photography. Intertwined with this is the physical imposition of humankind’s order onto the landscape as we expand out and subsume the natural environment. A landscape image has been captured through a physical frame with textured glass, and then composited onto housing estate walls under construction. I aim to stimulate the viewer to consider these concepts through the contrast of natural/constructed and free/yet constrained images.

Artist Statement

I am in this dark space let me out into the light. Despair and solitude, a call for help. Humans cannot be kept confined, we are social creatures and have a need for personal interaction.

Artist Statement

There are times when solitude and aloneness, can be calm and peaceful, no distractions, just the moment. Time to breathe and enjoy, be at peace with yourself.

Artist Statement

 Correct Image Name:  Australia 2020-2021?

I collect small objects that catch my attention as interesting forms, including rusted bottle tops, carelessly discarded in public carparks and distorted by passing traffic. I began to think of these as symbols rather than curiosities: 2020, a horror year, represented here by objects of zero value, in the colours of bushfires and plague: photographs of 20 bottle tops, arranged in vaguely robotic form, varied to symbolise localised improvements or problems. At the beginning of 2021, I incorporated another found object, a brutalised ten cent piece, (worthless currency) hovering, above the “20” as a symbol of hope but uncertainty.

Artist Statement

My images represent the relentless search that the galahs in the Wheatbelt have for water. The often drought affected land offers little for their survival and they find sanctuary in the shade of an isolated tree. The actions of the galahs is not dissimilar to that of the Wheatbelt farmer always waiting for the rain to sustain their crops and their livelihood.

Artist Statement

There is this peaceful place at our local dam that I visit on my walks. This day, a stand of paperbarks were glowing in the cool, early morning light. I understand they represent 'women’s' business' to the indigenous community, which could be why they always draw my to them.

Artist Statement

My husband's shed is a rambling roofed area that is open to the elements. It sits at the bottom of our yard full of his collected treasures, useful stuff and weathered memories. Although I am welcome to visit, it offers an escape and sanctuary to my husband from the workday grind. A mysterious place, I admit I cannot begin to understand; his man cave, the shed.

Artist Statement

Marking the passage of fourteen days in COVID quarantine, this series reveals my view of the outside world through my hotel bedroom window. A piece of sky, a 1950s hotel building, a window frame and a curtain. Outside, beyond my space of quiet and introspection, the world changed and convulsed in ways few of us had previously imagined.

Artist Statement

This image is part of an ongoing project responding to the journeys of George Augustus Robinson who, assisted by palawa (Indigenous Tasmanian) guides, walked through Van Diemen’s Land in the 1830s to persuade palawa still on Country to give up their resistance to the European invasion of their island. In following Robinson with his journal in hand I am seeking to connect the historical with the contemporary, to make sense of my existence in this island of dreams which was stolen violently from its first people. This fractured landscape is where Robinson spent his first night on one conciliation expedition.

MCPP 2021: Single Image Entries

Artist Statement

The catastrophic fires in southeastern Australia in 2019-2020 were shortly followed by torrential rain. The rivers and creeks disgorged vast quantities of debris from the conflagration into the ocean so that the waves turned grey with ash, and convulsed with charred remnants. Where the gentler waves reached their zenith on the beaches, small flecks of carbonised vegetation rested in ephemeral patterns suggesting the hills, ridges and valleys of their living selves

Artist Statement

During this recent period of controlled isolation I reflected intensely on a curious psychological situation sometimes referred to as acedia where indifference or carelessness, a state of restlessness reigned. The presented photograph, forming a series called Explorations, took this phenomenon as their source. In this unusual albeit transitory atmosphere I was given to examine of the most inane of subjects. They explore the mental rather than the physical relying mostly on colour or tone. The resulting imagery, finally disconnected from the original subject matter, strives to explore a synthetic and transmuted world.

Artist Statement

To me this image is about insignificance. The yacht, when we see its relationship to the immensity of the sea and the sky, has nothing to connect with and thus becomes insignificant. The Holga camera has created an ethereal environment, blurring the edges of reality and anything for the yacht to connect with, rendering it inconsequential. We feel insignificant when we lose touch with the sensory and social input of the world around us. We feel irrelevant, superfluous. The world becomes an all-encompassing entity overwhelming us into self-perceived unimportance.

Artist Statement

Western suburbs person, after a separation and divorce, moves to a small country town in northern Victoria and meets a new partner who has a large dog. Has life changed for her or is it more of the same?

Artist Statement

Freshly shaven, dressed to impress and armed with a bouquet of flowers, Leo waits at the bus stop to meet Rosie for the first time. He was nervous. Feeling apprehensive. He shouldn’t have worried. After a whirlwind romance Leo and Rosie were soon engaged and married. At 73 years of age, this would be Leo’s third attempt at marriage.

Artist Statement

Leo & Crazy would keep each other company during the day waiting for Glen to return from work. Leo told me that he never heard Crazy purr. Not once. He told me that Crazy was the most violent cat he ever met. Leo would enthusiastically rub his stomach, scratch behind Crazy’s ears and pat him all the while commenting to me that Crazy was a beautiful beast. Crazy seemed to enjoy this attention before eventually biting Leo, often drawing blood, then arrogantly sauntering off towards the back yard where he would catch and kill rats.

Artist Statement

For some, 2020 was a complete wash out. It was as though all hope, all sense of future, had drained away.

Artist Statement

Every day I gather and collect my hair. I’ve always lost a lot of hair and because I have so much, it’s never been a problem. That is until a diagnosis of MS changed my life. When everything else is falling apart, breaking and decaying you really start to notice little things. So I gather and collect my hair. Every day it goes into a jar and over time this hair forms into small nests as it molds itself within the shape of the vessel. Gather and collect. Gather and collect.

Artist Statement

This image brings to mind and exemplifies the fuzziness of my day to day life - it is rapidly passing me by in one big blur. I dream of a vision from this photo - of life, on a glorious day, with casual walks along the peaceful sands with loved ones and friends.

Artist Statement

What lies in the building next door? I see stairs, industrial surfaces, but no people. Is this an office block? Is it a residential building? Maybe a hotel? Or an abandoned structure? I wish I could magically drift into it and find out.

Artist Statement

What’s on the other side of the swamp?

Artist Statement

My Idea of this image, was to take these lifeless looking trees and turn them into something scary and Nightmarish.

Artist Statement

For 50 years, mum and dad had Christmas holidays at the Tallebudgera Caravan Park on the Gold Coast, Queensland. This place was where our most cherished family memories were made. Age meant they reluctantly but bravely sold their vintage caravan and booked a spectacular high-rise beachfront apartment nearby at Burleigh, with high hopes for this journey toward a new tradition. It rained torrentially and constantly for their two-week stay, and I took these images to reflect the gloom of our spirits and my parents’ remorse at the disappointing beginning to this ‘fabulous’ new holiday ritual.

Artist Statement

Born on an island, one of my greatest loves is the ocean, especially ones left free from human habitation. Here I explore and capture the essence of what I find during my wanderings. This image is one I found during my walks. It was left in the sand by the ocean, as it went past on its tidal journey. The hand stitching is added to represent the female and to amplify Mother Nature's impressions of herself, where she was seen and captured on camera walking the land. Alternately, it could be a self portrait of myself.

Artist Statement

The Denison is a coastal area on the East Coast of Tasmania. It is a place where I grew up and as my children grew, they explored it with me. The area is one of the many wild places still left with minimal human interactions. It is a place, hidden from tourism, a place where can be found the many ephemeral designs left behind by the elements. I call it my place, a place of dreams, a place I explore often over time, as I wander the shores and look for the magic left behind.