Celebrating its fifteenth year of competition, this year’s Gloucester’s annual Pix from the Stix exhibition has lost its colour. Quite literally. Embracing the concept of simple is sometimes best, competition organiser Chris Steele chose to wipe a black and white or ‘absence of colour’ theme across all the photos submitted in each category.
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“Last year I warned everyone to be ready for a change. I was probably inspired to go black and white after last year’s ‘Max Dupain Reinterpreted’ exhibition. Our first exhibition 15 years ago also featured Dupain’s ‘Mograni 1951’ photograph as its centrepiece, so I wanted to refer back to this. I also thought going black and white pushed the photographers’ skills further,” he said.
Chris admits that black and white photography is not to everyone’s liking and people either love it or hate it.
“I personally think it is a really seductive composite. It almost makes images abstract straight away” the visual arts and digital artist said.
Some colour has nonetheless crept into some images with the theme reinterpreted by more ‘purist’ photographers.
“They looked through the lens and took images of compositions that were already a black and white, so there are minimal elements of real life colour that made it through.”
He said the move to more creative category titles several years ago has also pushed photographers to get them to think more conceptually about their image. ‘Lie of the Land’ for example does not necessarily have to be an image of a natural landscape.
Though entries were a little down on numbers than previous years, Chris said the field of 43 entries was so strong he would like to repeat the essence of the theme again for next year.
Max Dupain’s former assistant and custodian of Max Dupain photography Jill White travelled from Sydney to judge the competition with the following results:
Juniors: First - ‘A Day in Life’ by Klara Gardiner; Second - ‘Selfie’ by Lauren O’Neill; Highly
Commended ‘I Rule the World’ by Alexander Bull
Not Your Normal Photo: First - ‘Backpedal’ by Ross Pearson; second - ‘What to do with Marylou’ by Shayne Gardiner; Highly Commended - ‘Embellish’ by Wendy Fraser
Man Made: First - ‘Rookhurst’ by Jeff De Witte; second - ‘Denison St Nippon’ by Wendy Fraser
Lie of the Land: First - ‘Sorghum Field’ by Wendy Fraser; second - ‘The Paddock’ by Jeff De Witte
Natural Environment: First ‘Reach for the Stars’ by Shayne Gardiner; second – ‘Birdy Birdy in the Tree’ by Georgia Britton; Highly Commended - ‘New Beginning’ by Sandra Ford
Locals: First - ‘The Book Barn’ by Georgia Britton; second - ‘The Camel Train’ by Georgia Britton; Highly Commended - ‘Untitled’ by The Cottage.
Major Prize: ‘Reach for the Stars’ by Shayne Gardiner
The exhibition will be on display at Gloucester Gallery until July 12.