2021 STORIES AWARD RECIPIENTS

2021 Recipients
June 29, 2021

Gloria Salgado Gispert – Show me the way home

Follow on Instagram @gloriasalgadogispert “How could I be frightened? I was with my Mother. When I was thirsty, she gave me water; when I was hungry, she fed me; when…
2021 Recipients
June 30, 2021

Michael Garbutt – Far Kurnell

Follow on Instagram @michael.garbutt As the site of first contact between indigenous Australians and British colonisers, the southern Sydney suburb of Kurnell holds a particular significance in the nations history.…
2021 Recipients
June 30, 2021

Aletheia Casey – Where does the sky end and space begin?

Follow on Instagram @aletheiacasey During the dark Winter months of the 2020 pandemic, I received news that one of my mother's neuroendocrine tumours had become aggressive. I live in London,…

2021 SHORTLISTED STORIES

2021 Shortlisted
June 16, 2021

Amy Woodward – Lily, Mother

Follow on Instagram @amywoodwardphoto Motherhood. It’s impossible to summarise the immense, searing love and beauty - and the unrelenting, often smothering intensity (yet somehow, the invisibility). The pressure. The hilarity.…
2021 Shortlisted
June 16, 2021

Ashlea Caygill – A Light in the Darkness

Follow on Instagram @ashlea.caygill A photo documentation series of my time throughout self isolation. Inspired by the words of Christina Rinaldi and iso self portrait challenge from Michelle Grace Hunder.…
2021 Shortlisted
June 16, 2021

Cat Leedon – Breast Cancer, Age 36

Follow on Instagram @catleedon CONTENT WARNING: SENSITIVE THEMES At age 36 I was diagnosed with breast cancer. As I tried to understand what was happening to me, the images I…
2021 Shortlisted
June 16, 2021

Cecilia Sordi Campos – Tem Bigato Nessa Goiaba

Follow on Instagram @ceciliasordicampos To live, and to love is visceral. This project has been made as a means to understand the parallels between my migration from Brazil to Australia…
2021 Shortlisted
June 16, 2021

Chanel Irvine – Another English Summer

Follow on Instagram @chanelirvine In the summer of 2019, the UK was desperately trying to reconcile the uncertainties and realities of Brexit. In the summer of 2020, the UK was…
2021 Shortlisted
June 16, 2021

Dave Carswell – Grant Me The Serenity

Follow on Instagram @daaavecarswell Since returning to my home state of lutruwita/Tasmania at the start of the global pandemic, I have faced a reckoning of sorts in considering my childhood…
2021 Shortlisted
June 16, 2021

David Evans – The Sámi reindeer herders of Lapland

Follow on Instagram @davidevansphotographer The Sámi are an indigenous Finno-Ugric people inhabiting Sápmi, which today encompasses large northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Kola Peninsula within the Murmansk…
2021 Shortlisted
June 16, 2021

David Wallin – I Was Too Late

Follow on Instagram @_eldavros I found out my dad was dead when the police rang my doorbell one evening. We sat awkwardly around our half eaten dinner as the Sergeant…
2021 Shortlisted
June 16, 2021

Diego Fedele – I Was Born Again: After 7 and a half years in Australia’s immigration detention system.

Follow on Instagram @diego_fedele_ It was the 11th of December. Farhad Bandesh was ready to spend his 39th birthday in detention, when his phone started to ring. A six-month temporary…
2021 Shortlisted
June 16, 2021

Drew Hopper – West Of Somewhere East

Follow on Instagram @drewhopper The ongoing series ˜West Of Somewhere East depicts life in Outback Australia. With an inquisitive eye, I become a tourist transiting in my own backyard. The…
2021 Shortlisted
June 16, 2021

Francesco Vicenzi – The Only Way Out is Through

Follow on Instagram @francescovicenzi It isn’t until I burn my dinner on a Friday night that it suddenly dawns on me. I can usually smell if my cooking is running…
2021 Shortlisted
June 16, 2021

Karoliina Kase – The Ravens Tell You Where the Dead Are

Follow on Instagram @karoliinakase The Ravens Tell You Where the Dead Are is a series about rural Australia in the age of extinction. Since 2019, I have been traveling around…
2021 Shortlisted
June 16, 2021

Katelyn Slyer – Childhood Nostalgia

Follow on Instagram @katelyn_slyer_photos Since having my first child recently, I have been contemplating my own upbringing. Thinking about the strong memories that remain so vivid in my mind today,…
2021 Shortlisted
June 16, 2021

Katherine Williams – Vermilion Blues

Follow on Instagram @kathwphoto Vermilion Blues Living in Newcastle, the traumatic events of 2020 seemed always to hover at the horizon. In January the air was thick with blue and…
2021 Shortlisted
June 16, 2021

Kim Guthrie – Johns Landing Camping Ground

Follow on Instagram @iphotographstuff ‘Johns Landing’ is an out-of-the-way 132 acre tract of absolute Noosa river front land, just beyond Lake Cooroibah in southeast Queensland, owned by the Johns family…
2021 Shortlisted
June 16, 2021

Louise Coghill – The Fire

Follow on Instagram @louisetakesphotos At 15:26:00pm on February 1st I grab my camera and walk to our neighbours house. The wind is hot and dry. It’s unruly, and strange for…
2021 Shortlisted
June 16, 2021

Matthew Dunne – The Killing Sink

Follow on Instagram @matt.dunne Despite the image of Australia as home to unique and wonderful animals, it has the some of the worst rates of extinction in the world. Since…
2021 Shortlisted
June 16, 2021

Matthew Newton – Stranding

Follow on Instagram @rummin_matt In September last year more than 450 long-finned pilot whales were caught on sandbanks and beaches inside Macquarie Harbour on Tasmania’s west coast. 50 whales were…
2021 Shortlisted
June 16, 2021

Matthew O’Donnell – An Excerpt from the Old House

Follow on Instagram @noiromancer 31 Laurel Bank is a story of discovery. Of discovering photography. Of discovering fatherhood. Of discovering purpose and meaning and love and beauty and, through it…
2021 Shortlisted
June 16, 2021

Nicholas Walton-Healey – Above The Water

Follow on Instagram @nicholaswaltonhealey Above The Water is a composite, environmental* portrait of my fiancée, Harriet Rose McKnight (1989-2019). In addition to being my soul-mate and muse, Harriet was also herself an…
2021 Shortlisted
June 16, 2021

Nick Hinch – An Australian Dream

Follow on Instagram @hickninch An ongoing series exploring the connection between nostalgic childhood memories and the subconsciousness of The Great Australian Dream.
2021 Shortlisted
June 16, 2021

Pearce Leal – Common in folklore

Follow on Instagram @learcepeal The Flying Fox plays a significant role in sustaining Australias ecosystems through pollinating flowers and dispersing seeds as they forage for native flora. Flying Foxes are…
2021 Shortlisted
June 16, 2021

Rowena Meadows – Nobodys Child

Follow on Instagram @rowenameadowsphoto While photographing ordinary scenes of family life over the past five years, I have found myself drawn to depicting children and young people in anonymous ways.…
2021 Shortlisted
July 20, 2021

Sharon Slocum – Isolation Companions COVID 2020 Lockdown

People's Choice Winner 2021 Follow on Instagram @sharon_slocum In the absence of human-to-human contact during COVID Lockdowns, animals stepped in to fill the void for many people by easing loneliness,…
2021 Shortlisted
June 16, 2021

Shea Kirk – Vantages

Follow on Instagram @grandpashea Over the last few years I have been inviting people into my home studio to sit for the ongoing series Vantages. Using dual large format cameras,…
2021 Shortlisted
June 16, 2021

Tracey Nearmy – Raze

Follow on Instagram @tracenarms After 3 weeks of breathing smoke and ash, it felt like I’d never take in cool crisp air again. In the January summer of 2020, Australia…
2021 Shortlisted
June 16, 2021

Trent Mitchell – Flower Moon

Follow on Instagram @trent_mitchell_ My daughter Ayla began her transition into the world during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic beneath the Super Flower Moon of May “ a…