Congratulations to Emma Perry, winner of the 2021 Australian Photography Awards Landscape Category. The genre of landscape often presents to us the beautiful, exotic and awe inspiring. As our worlds have become smaller we see our community respond in imaginative and creative ways which is so exciting for us to witness.
Upon first glance, Emma’s photograph presents a banal and suburban scene, an image that feels like it could have been made in any Australian backyard. On deeper consideration we felt Emma’s image presented us with a contemporary landscape at odds with its romanticised colonial history. The image, humorous yet compelling, speaks of the layered histories within the Australian landscape and how we position ourselves within it.
We would also like to congratulate Deb Bonney and Chris Round, recipients of Second and Third place respectively, as well as the other 20 finalists in this year’s Landscape category. We truly feel that this year is our strongest, most diverse gallery yet and that everybody who took part in APA 2021 should feel proud of their achievement.
Finally, our deepest gratitude to Epson Australia, Ilford, Momento Pro, Urth and Format Framing for supporting the Landscape category in 2021. It is through these organisation’s generous support that we are able to continue highlighting the most exciting Australian photography year after year.
FINALISTS
Chris Round
Hoover Dam, Arizona, USA | Low water levels in Lake Mead reveal the iconic intake towers of the Hoover Dam and the surrounding igneous rocks. Lake Mead is the lifeblood of the American West, but since the 1980s its water levels have been receding at an alarming rate, dropping by hundreds of feet. Huge population growth, water mismanagement and misallocation, and climate change have all contributed, creating an unprecedented water crisis. It’s hoped that higher snowfall and monsoonal summer rains will raise levels again, but with an ever-warming planet, experts say more action is needed to prevent a catastrophic water shortage.
Ben Challenor
I see another story in the dark. The night is a quiet time with less distraction. The world moves at a slower pace in the silence. I am a wanderer, an explorer between shadows and light. The liminal veil is a place where a transition occurs between the threshold and the place that waits before us. These are landscapes of sorts; they are images of recesses. These suburban hollows are constructed records of mood ridden scenes with deep chiaroscuro velvet blacks where we find ourselves alone in a dark world.
Sam Ferris
A quintet of Australian White Ibis fly through the fog and reflected light early on a Winter's morning at Sydney's Circular Quay. Due to its increasing presence in the urban environment and its habit of scavenging from human refuse, the species has been colloquially dubbed the 'bin chicken' and, in recent years, has become iconic in Australian popular culture. Symbolic of urban Sydney's encroachment on native habitats, there has been much debate whether to consider these birds a pest or a protected species.
Chris Round
Aggregate pile, Whyalla, South Australia | Whyalla is dominated by iron ore deposits, processing plants, and steelworks. Heavily reliant on the industry for its livelihood, the town has been through many boom-and-bust cycles. And in 2021 the future of the steelworks was once again thrown into doubt after the collapse of Greensill Capital, the company that financed the owner of the steelworks. Whatever its future, the red-stained surroundings will continue to define the landscape. It’s both haunting and beautiful - a hot, dry, and alien landscape dominated by piles of red earth, processing materials, and stark industrial architecture.
Andrew Farr
Last One | The only tree left standing after a wildfire rips through the remote Peterman ranges in Central Australia. Shot on a Linhof Technorama film camera.
Chris Round
Café, after hours | Centennial Park in Sydney is well-known for its daytime recreation activities. But in the evening, when everyone has left, the park takes on a whole new mood and aesthetic, becoming even more visually appealing. This café, devoid of patrons but with its lights still on, stands eerily alone against the wooded backdrop and blue dusky sky.
Peter Ogden
Mooney Mooney Bridge | When the mist clings to the land, it muffles nature. But in this case, beneath the massive Mooney Mooney Bridge, I could clearly hear water droplets hitting the surface of Mooney Mooney Creek. Falling from the motorway bridge high above, way out of sight in the mist, the droplets were the remnants of a passing storm…and a reminder that the bridge was still up there.
Tebani Slade
Winter Playground | This image was taken in late December 2020 in the Pyrenees town of La Molina. It was early morning and an eerie feeling hung over this small playground outside my window. With the street lamps casting a glow, illuminating the empty space, it was another reminder of the uncertain times Covid had brought upon us.
Nick Hinch
I Want a Suburban Home | Part of an ongoing series "An Australian Dream" exploring the connection between nostalgic childhood memories and the subconsciousness of The Great Australian Dream. Pakenham, Vic
Matt Palmer
Uncertainty | Fire breaks out near Fingal in Tasmania. The fire would go on to destroy 20,000 hectares of bushland and country.
Grayson Cooke
Cirrus | Great Australian Bight This is an image of cirrus clouds over the Great Australian Bight, derived from the "cirrus" band of the Landsat 8 satellite, which records reflected light only in a very narrow infrared band, 1.36-1.39 microns. This data is recorded solely for the purposes of algorithms designed to remove these wispy cirrus clouds from satellite data. So, this is an image that was never intended to be seen by human beings as an "image".
Peter Ogden
Worimi Wandering | I walked along a remote fire trail into the Worimi Conservation Lands of Australia’s East Coast on a sweltering summer’s day. The biggest shifting sand dunes in the Southern Hemisphere boasted some incredibly strange sights, none stranger than these long-since discarded bottles, scrubbed clean by sandblasting, making their way UP a large sand dune…pushed ever upwards by the forces of nature.
SHORTLISTED
In alphabetical order
Adam Resch
Coral spawning, Ningaloo Reef. This happens approximately 7-10 days after a full moon in the months of March and April.
Adam Resch
176,500 km2 | One of the driest regions of the Australian continent, the Munga-Thirri–Simpson Desert Conservation Park
Alex Ham
Emerald Fissure | Aerial abstract of coastal patterns from Shark Bay, WA. Taken from a Cesna fixed wing aircraft
Ben Challenor
I see another story in the dark. The night is a quiet time with less distraction. The world moves at a slower pace in the silence. I am a wanderer, an explorer between shadows and light. The liminal veil is a place where a transition occurs between the threshold and the place that waits before us. These are landscapes of sorts; they are images of recesses. These suburban hollows are constructed records of mood ridden scenes with deep chiaroscuro velvet blacks where we find ourselves alone in a dark world.
Christine Goerner
Mountain Ash 03 | A celebration of the majesty of a regenerating forest once devastated by bushfires, and now a multi-layered, mystical landscape–rich in texture and the detail of nature. This photograph captures the distinct pattern of parallel lines created by thousands of extremely tall, bare Mountain Ash trees in the Murrindindi region of Victoria, Australia. The abstracted composition reveals the beauty in the natural world through pattern, line, form, and texture.
Christine Goerner
Mountain Ash 12 | A celebration of the majesty of a regenerating forest once devastated by bushfires, and now a multi-layered, mystical landscape–rich in texture and the detail of nature. This photograph captures the distinct pattern of parallel lines created by thousands of extremely tall, bare Mountain Ash trees in the Murrindindi region of Victoria, Australia. The abstracted composition reveals the beauty in the natural world through pattern, line, form, and texture.
Daryl Lohrey
Almost ready? | This was taken on our Tasmanian farm just to record the size of the wheat heads. The later planted crops are in the background still drying off.
David Munro
Ice Art | An aerial shot above a glacier in South Iceland. Volcanic ash forms unique and changing patterns as the glacial ice sheets move.
Federico Rekowski
Within 5km | Within my 5km, a suburban prison, two poles set limits, restrictions, the darkness waiting for the light, the fog to be lifted so I can see clearly again beyond my 5km.
Georgie Puschner
Tabular | A colossal tabular iceberg, carved off the Antarctic continent, floats northward towards the notorious Drake Passage. Our ship cruised by this icy giant, framed by the dark sky and ocean and leaving all those standing before it in awe.
Guy Havell
The Art of the Mine | Despite the risk of landslides, miners continue extracting gold from the Fimiston Open Pit, Kalgoorlie, WA.
Ian Skinner
Mist on the Escarpment | In the early morning, mist circled around the ridges and valleys of the tree clad sandstone cliffs.
Julie Purdie
Through the Trees 1 | As an optometrist I am interested in exploring the unexpected beauty of imperfect vision. Blur, glare, altered colour perception and afterimages can create engaging and emotional images. By deliberately inducing visual errors sometimes images can become more dramatic and more meaningful; certain elements are emphasised while others are lost and we can see the world in a new way.
Julie Sundberg
Goolay'yari Triptych Goolay'yari | Triptych was was created during the COVID-19 lockdown of 2020 on my daily walks by the Cooks River. I experimented with in-camera multiple exposure and constructed imaginary landscapes with different focus and view points within the frame: metaphors for my failing vision and the fragmented nature of my life which simultaneously became physically smaller and intellectually larger. Surrendering to the chance and randomness of this technique and tapping into my 'inmost consciousness' was a joyful counterpoint to the grim daily news and social controls imposed by lockdown.
Kelvin Lau
In June 2021 I was stuck in Melbourne, unable to return home to South Gippsland due to the lockdown's 'ring of steel' between regional and metropolitan Victoria. The stillness that I solely missed was found during nighttime winter wanderings through dim suburbia.
Louise Coghill
Hoar Frost | A unique weather pattern descends on South Canterbury. Clouds remain stuck in the valley for five days and the prolonged wet and freezing conditions slowly turns everything to frost. Living inside a frozen cloud requires extra layers, and careful driving, but it also brings a peaceful quiet. to the entire valley.
Louise Coghill
Landslip | The volatile earth ensures the landscape is always changing, however the strong root system of the rainforest tries to resist the unruly forces of nature. It's unclear which force will win this battle, as the roots keep the earth entwined even as the land slips away beneath it.
Mat Beetson
MUD SUN | Aerial Photo at approx 800 ft. Mudflats leaving behind some really interesting patterns as the water recedes.
Matt Horspool
Sludge | This shot depicts the destruction of a natural ecosystem from an enormous tailings dam in Australia. Here the sludge crosses a man-made road, creating incredible abstract patterns from the sky.
Matt Horspool
Wasteland | This shot depicts the destruction of a natural ecosystem from an enormous tailings dam in Australia. Most life has been strangled out by the toxic waste, with only a few resilient plants managing to survive. Scenes like this have long captured my fascination with their abstract beauty overshadowed by their sinister backstory.
Melissa Drummond & M Ellen Burns
There Is No End To The Sky (and the stars are everywhere, and time is eternity, and here is over there) | The sum of two parts, inspired by "A Little Sermon" by Poet E Barret-Browning. A collaboration between two Eastern Goldfields photographers - This diptych brings together analogue and digital, the physical and ethereal, earth and sky. Below, expired film affected by light and time, revealing layers and textures; a metaphor for memory. Above, the skyscape evokes similar feelings of nostalgia and gaps in time. These singular images of detached loneliness are placed together to reveal a shared connection.
Michael Currie
The scorched landscape near Mallacoota at the end of the summer of fire 2019-20. As the Australian Army Chinook helicopter approached the airport at Mallacoota the nose lifted and the brunt landscape that had dominated them minds and screens of Australians and the world was framed by the ramp and doorway just before we touched down. Image Taken by Private Micheal Currie entered with permission of the Australian Army.
Oscar Saunders
Rise Above - on cross-processed Velvia 100 | Southeast Asia hosts multiple varieties of invasive vine species, such as kudzu vine. Traveling up Vietnam's quiet western highway, you can see vines smothering hundreds of kilometers of forest with a layer of foliage, turning the trees into ghostlike figures. At one point, you may notice this solitary tree pushing through, standing well clear of the canopy. Cross processing is usually just a bit of fun because the results are extreme and hard to predict. In my collection, this image stands apart, rather like its tree.
Paul Foley
Wonderful Chaos (One) | The random blend of nature and movement intrigues me. For this series, I am combining several portions of long exposure captures of the ocean as it crashes against the shore. Rather than being a literal depiction, I add to the natural chaos by reversing, flipping and otherwise blending various layers of motion and time. My process is a testament to the always-changing shoreline and a mind that is not permanently settled. At some stage, I reach a calm place, then I press print.
Rebecca Murray
BECOMING | Coming out of the 2019/2020 bushfires into a global pandemic, in Australia and beyond, the world feels considerably changed. New and old vulnerabilities have surfaced. Strength and resilience have also emerged. With all life on earth feeling increasingly precariousness, I am reminded of the interconnected nature of all things. That nothing happens in isolation. That collective efforts can be powerful. And while I drift between hope and despair, I wonder what we will learn and what we will become.
Rebecca Murray
MISTS AND SHADOWS | Australia’s colonial identity is predicated on fiction. The claiming, taming and exploitation of the landscape is both enshrined in folklore and etched upon the continent. Multiple stories and connections lie deep within the landscape. Some known and celebrated, others embedded beneath the surface, or relegated to the shadows.
Robert Walwyn
Karrikins 3 | Shot in Yaouk (Snowy Mountains) in September 2020 following the devastating Black Summer bushfires. This photo was taking using a false-colour infrared film (Kodak Aerochrome), which was originally designed for camouflage detection and has historically been used for forestry surveys, to emphasise the contrast between the blackened trees and the new regrowth.
Ruben Bull-Milne
Greening our city | Construction debris spills out onto the edge of the Birrarung river. Weedy brassicas and grasses readily colonise the new landscape.
Samuel Markham
Serpent | The King River is graced by light on an incredible morning helicopter flight over Wyndham, Western Australia.
Samuel Markham
Window To The Alps | The tallest peaks in New Zealand, Mount Cook and Mount Tasman. Seen here from Lake Matheson framed by native West Coast Forest.
Shane Cartlidge
Point Break | The anatomy of surf - Bronte, NSW. The wave swells towards him, thundering down before he can make it over the crest. A momentary call; dive down or be swept away in the chaotic turbulence. Deep breath, into the depths; vortex rolls over, now reach for the surface. The next one will be his, the next one.
Tim Van Leeuwen
Wallarman falls is Australia's highest, permanent single drop waterfall. The day I visited, the falls were in fine form after recent heavy rain. The moment I took this image a small shard of light illuminated a section of the rock wall creating a memorable image.
