Head On Photo Festival & Head On Seminar

Sydney's Head On has quickly become one of Australia's biggest photographic festivals. Held annually, Head On covers the diversity of photographic practice in Australia, and last year featured over 80 events held at almost 70 venues. At the heart of the festival is the Head On Portrait Prize , one of the nation's major photographic portrait prizes.

This year's festival will feature the inaugural Head On Seminar , which will take place on 14-15 May 2011. Scholarships are available for Indigenous photographers to attend this industry seminar program and take part in workshops. Recipients will receive funds towards the costs of flights, accomodation, transport and seminar fees.

Download the application form here.

Applications close 5pm, 1 April 2011.

National Photographic Portrait Prize

Last year's Bowness Photography Prize winner Lee Grant is among the 55 finalists for this year's National Photographic Portrait Prize. This year's judging panel, National Portrait Gallery curators Sarah Engledow and Christopher Chapman, Director of Adelaide’s Experimental Art Foundation Domenico de Clario, and National Portrait Gallery Director Louise Doyle, whittled down the 1,200 photographs submitted to just 55 - some really brave choices among them. The winner of the $25,000 prize will be announced at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra at 6pm, 24 February 2011. Good luck Lee, and each of the other finalists on being selected for this important prize.

DIANA MADNESS

MGA's favourite camera supplier LOMO is about to begin two months of Diana Madness in Australia and New Zealand.

Hosted once every few years, the Lomography World Congress is responsible for uniting Lomographers from all over the world that share one common interest-an immense love for analogue photography.

No Vacancy Gallery is hosting the Melbourne leg of the tour with an exhibition, a great range of workshops and events. Check out their site: http://no-vacancy.com.au/wp/?p=18

Don't forget, MGA's shop stocks a range of LOMO cameras and accessories.



No Vacancy Gallery
34 – 40 Jane Bell Lane, QV, Melbourne.
Exhibition Running: 24th February – 12th March 2011
Trading Hours:
Monday: Gallery Closed
Tuesday – Friday: 11:00am – 5:00pm
Saturday: 11:00am – 5:00pm
Sunday: 12:00am – 5:00pm

Tracy Moffatt: Narratives at AGSA

MGA’s touring collection show, Tracy Moffatt: Narratives, is about to open at the Art Gallery of South Australia.

For this instalment of the exhibition, AGSA’s Associate Curator of Prints Drawings and Photographs, Maria Zagala, has augmented the show with four additional series of works and an installation of the video montages that Moffatt has produced with Gary Hillberg.

The exhibition is being presented as part of the BigPond Adelaide Film Festival, and screenings of Moffatt’s films will also take place during the course of the show. Until 20 March 2011

Jodi Beiber wins World Press Photo of the Year 2011

Eminent South African photojournalist Jodi Beiber has won the 54th World Press Photo Contest for her portrait of Bibi Aisha -- a woman from Oruzgan Province, Afghanistan, whose nose and ears were cut off by her husband with the support of the Taliban, who had accused her of abandoning her husband. The photograph appeared on the front cover of Time magazine in August 2010, and even before this significant award came to embody the violence suffered by Afghan women under Taliban rule. Beiber's picture was selected by the World Press jury from over 108,000 entries.

Hijacked III

You may have seen Hijacked II: Australia and Germany at MGA recently. The exhibition is about to open at Queensland College of Art Gallery, Griffiths University, before heading to the Samstag in Adelaide. The show is accompanied by a spectacular publication.

Mark McPherson, the man behind the Hijacked project, is now looking for entries for its third installment. Photographers from Australia and Britain are encouraged to submit entries. Mark and his selection panel are looking for material that suggests the "future of photography", in both conceptual and technical terms. As with Hijacked I and II, a book and exhibition will follow.

Afterglow: performance art & photography

MGA’s major exhibition, Afterglow: performance art & photography, is now on display until 3 April. This exhibition examines the relationship between photography and performance art, highlighting the different ways performance artists have used photography to document their temporal activities and extend the audience for their performances beyond the event itself.

While Afterglow focuses on Australian artists, similar themes are explored internationally in the Museum of Modern Art’s current exhibition, Staging action: performance in photography since 1960, which is on display in New York until 9 May: http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1100

For more information on Afterglow, the artists included and the exciting program of events scheduled to coincide with the exhibition, visit MGA’s website: http://www.mga.org.au/exhibition/view/exhibition/81

Look: contemporary Australian photography since 1980

Anne Marsh's massive new book Look: contemporary Australian photography since 1980 was launched last night at CCP. Look is 400 pages and includes hundreds of full-colour illustrations, all organised according to thematic chapters: identity, life, experiment, space and environment. Marsh has also written five short essays that elaborate the ideas used to organise the photographic illustrations. The essays provide a great context for the pictures, flagging the critical, curatorial and commercial factors that have helped shape recent Australian photographic practice. It's lush and perfect for xmas. Also, as with such surveys, it is great to go through and see how Marsh's selection of 190 artists and their photographs stacks up against your own wish list of great Australian photographs from the last 30 years!

New North exhibition: call for entries

After the success of their first gallery-curated exhibition Four elements: air, New North are asking for submissions for the second instalment in this series – Four elements: water. The exhibition will take place at the Fairfield gallery from 3 to 26 February 2010.

Four elements: water will explore the subject of water (of which Victorians have seen a lot lately!) in photography through the depiction of bodies of water (sea, lakes, rivers, puddles), clouds, atmospheric effects, wetness, condensation, environmental photography, as well as social or political commentary associated with water issues. Contact David (david@newnorth.com.au) or Micheal (michael@newnorth.com.au) for details.

Pinhole camera workshop

Pinhole camera workshop
12-4pm Saturday 27 November 2010

Want to give pinhole photography a shot? Heard about it but don't know where to start? Recently bought a Diana or a Holga with pinhole capability and want some tips?

David Tatnall will provide expert advice for beginners of all types wanting to give pinhole photography a go in this fun workshop. Tips and tricks from making an accurate pinhole, avoiding blank film, what to ask for at the lab to how to build your own or even convert a camera you already have.

Bring along your own pinhole if you have one, or there are a few different types available to purchase from SHOP@MGA or even just play with a borrowed one on the day.

Bookings Essential, limited places
$35 Friends of MGA
$40 General

Call 03 8544 0500 to book your place

About the presenter:
David Tatnall is well known for his masterful use of pinhole cameras to capture urban and natural landscapes. His runs intensive large format photography and pinhole classes where he guides you through the steps to build your own accurate camera at Gold Street Studios in Trentham East

Is Photography Global?

Panel Discussion
Wednesday, 1 December 2010, 6.15pm
What are the relations involved in the global production of photographs? In what ways are new technologies influencing, shaping or impinging on these relations? Does photography have a specific place in globalisation? Are some kinds of photography more global than others?

Is Photography Global? aims to begin an international conversation among critics, historians and practitioners of photography on global thinking within the discipline.

Paul James (Director of the Globalism Institute, RMIT), Natalie King (curator/ writer) and Matthew Sleeth (artist) will discuss issues around the global production, distribution and local reception of photographs. Led by David Bate (University of Westminster, London) and Daniel Palmer (Monash University, Melbourne).

Centre for Contemporary Photography
404 George Street Fitzroy Victoria 3065 Australia
t +61 3 9417 1549 w www.ccp.org.au

image:
‘The Blue Marble’ — Earth seen from
Apollo 17, 1972.
NASA/courtesy of nasaimages.org

The past, present and future of photography

Have a spare 15 minutes? Fill your ears with a discussion of the past, present and future of photography. SFMOMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art), guided by their upcoming exhibitions and a fascinating forum from earlier this year, ask the question 'Is photography over?'.

You can watch and listen along here.

SFMOMA is currently showing two photography focused exhibitions: Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance, and the Camera Since 1870 and Henri Cartier-Bresson: The modern century