Australian Centre for Photography is lucky enough to host the Head On portrait exhibition this year because the exhibition and the competition have been amazing.
May 1st 2008 was the opening day of the exhibition where 42 finalists and 130 photographs are shown in the gallery. And this exhibition has showed me another face of Australia, the ordinary face of Australia.
Clever Moore, the Lord Mayor of Sydney, opened the exhibition. “In a city obsessed with celebrity, it is refreshing to see portraits which speak about the community and precious individuality,” Clover Moore said.
Social impact and ordinarily are the theme of competition and the exhibition. A portrait of ordinary person with extraordinary impact on the society is likely to win the portrait competition.
This side of Australian face is represented by three portraits that won the award that night, which are Brendan Esposito’s portrait of two children sleeping roughly under a blanket, Richard Kendall’s portrait of two men being treated in Alfred hospital with bubbles on their head, and Tobias Titz’s portrait of an indigenous man where his life experience can be seen through details of his face.
“If it’s a strong images, than it is there,” Moshe Rosenzveig, the founder of Head On, said to conclude the night and to present the other side of Australian faces.
