24 January 2006

The 2003 Leica/CCP Documentary Photography Award, Australia’s most prestigious survey of contemporary documentary photography, has opened at the Shepparton Art Gallery.

Entries for the 2003 exhibition are a diverse and provocative mix, ranging from the political to the personal, the abstract to the intense. The works cover subjects as diverse as bushfires, teenage debutantes and hardware stores and range from presenting sobering issues of social realism, to a celebration of the quieter moments in life.

Running since 1997, the Leica/CCP exhibition represents a unique initiative in the support of documentary photography. The works provide a fascinating entry point into the variety of approaches and concerns which characterise documentary practice today. Finalists are selected by a panel of distinguished judges, including Radio National Art Critic Bruce James who said of the exhibition:

“Without documentary photography, photography itself is diminished. It is the conscience of the medium. At a time when technical manipulation and theoretical mediation exert a powerful influence in photography, that some photographers continue to bear witness to the world around them, undistracted by the endless possibilities for distraction in 21st century life and culture, is something to celebrate.”

Monash student Domenico Cozzolino was announced as the 2003 winner for his series Arcadia Del Sud: West Heidelberg, Melbourne, Australia, Circa 1966. This work is a digital reworking of a series of shots taken by Cozzolino as a teenager in the mid to late 1960s, showing his parents basking in their new-found economic freedom as ‘New Australians’ in the land he has called ‘Arcadia of the South’. These images show his parents in their recently purchased brick veneer home in the Victorian Housing Commission estate of West Heidelberg. They are proud of their garden, chooks and of the ‘new’ second-hand Austin Freeway in the drive. On the surface a picture of suburban simplicity and innocence, the photos also hint at the loneliness and cultural isolation his parents faced as first generation migrants.

Friends of the Shepparton Art Gallery Coffee Morning

The guest speaker for February will be Ray Sizer. Ray is a multi award winning documentary photographer and works for the Shepparton News. We are all familiar with Ray’s extraordinary ability to capture ‘the moment’ – a picture that tells a thousand words. On Wednesday 1 February at 10.00am Ray Sizer will talk about his

professional practice and the techniques used in the Leica Award exhibits. All welcome.

LET’S TALK ART: La Trobe University Lecture Series

On 16 February at 5.30pm 2003 Leica Finalist Donna Bailey will present a lecture titled ‘Documenting the subject’.

Bailey, now a PhD candidate in the La Trobe University Visual Arts Department, initially experimented using a large format camera that she borrowed from the University. She began by taking a few shots of her children in and around her 1.2 hectare property in Kangaroo Flat, near Bendigo. These early experiments developed into an ongoing series on Bailey’s children and their friends at home. The recurring backdrop for her documentary style photographs has become her semi-rural backyard, populated by a constantly evolving young cast.

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