Having Head On Photo Festival withdrawal symptoms? Or didn’t quite make it to the festival? Never fear! We’re here with a round-up of some of our favourite things…

 

Having Head On Photo Festival withdrawal symptoms? Or didn’t quite make it to the festival? Never fear! We’re here with a round-up of some of our favourite things…

Where else to start but in our beloved Festival Hub and with our 2015 hero image.

This beautiful image, “Maelle et Keleti” by French artist Georges Pacheco, got people talking and sparked much debate about social, photographic and feminist issues. Pacheco says, “I wanted to pay photo-homage to this universal act whilst borrowing references from Italian Renaissance and Dutch painting schools. By revisiting the icon of the nursing virgin, a central and recurring theme from the 15th to the 17th century, I tried to question the process of representation and incarnation of such an archetypal image by present day mothers, whom I ask to be in an ‘non-self’ attitude, whilst fully living the privileged bond and intimate moment with their child.” See more at: https://www.headon.org.au/exhibitions/amalth%C3%A8e

Next, we’ll move onto the star-studded show of the festival, Sandro Miller’s “Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich: Homage to Photographic Masters”, who doesn’t love a well perfected pastiche? Miller uses John Malkovich to recreate some of the world’s most famous images by photographic masters, with his end result bringing the right amount of nostalgia, humour and intrigue to each and every viewer. See more at: https://www.headon.org.au/exhibitions/malkovich-malkovich-malkovich-homage-photographic-masters

 

The smile, a pleased, kind, or amused expression, was the fundamental feature behind VII Photo Agency’s show in the Festival Hub. We explored all kinds of smiles, for all kinds of reasons, all over the world. Something as simple as a smile can join some amazing photographs and photographers together in  a show that documented the nuances of humankind. From Ashley Gilbertson’s  2003 picture in which a U.S. Marine slides down the marble banister in Saddam’s palace in Tikrit, Iraq to Joachim Ladefoged’s 2011 picture of emotional fans reacting with joy and tears at the Justin Bieber concert in Stadionhalle, Zürich, Switzerland. See more at: https://www.headon.org.au/exhibitions/smile

 

From VII’s Smile: Christopher Morris, 2010, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, center, attends the annual year end greetings for top Italian government officials at the Palazzo del Quirinale, the Presidential Palace, in Rome, Italy on Dec. 20, 2010. Berlusconi attends amidst a series of political, financial and personal scandals surrounding the billionaire Prime Minister.

PDN showed us their 30 New and Emerging Photographers to Watch. Each year since 1999, the editors of PDN have selected 30 emerging photographers who represent a variety of styles and genres and have demonstrated a distinctive vision, creativity, and versatility. The mythical images from Anna Beeke, the wanderlust of Antoine Bruy, colour and quirk of Michael Clinard and spansish style of Rus Anson’s work made the exhibition an inspiration to many. See more at: https://www.headon.org.au/exhibitions/pdns-30-2015

Shunzan Fan took us on a dream tour Between Heaven and Earth showing us the hand-coloured childhood aspirations of his subjects. We peer into the youthful dreams of the wannabe singers, athletes and princesses. See more at: https://www.headon.org.au/exhibitions/between-heaven-and-earth

Finally, Michael Robinson Chávez takes us on a journey of a different kind. His documentation of the drought in California confronts us with the human tales from this environmental adversity; Fred Lujan is seeing his dream of retiring a gentleman farmer evaporate as his pistachio orchard wilts under a scorching sun. Francisco Galvez, who has made a living as a farm worker in California for 20 years, now goes days without work. His hopes for his children getting an education are withering along with the crops that surround him. – See more at: https://www.headon.org.au/exhibitions/driest-seasons-californias-dust-bowl#sthash.qdPZdgBb.dpuf

Head On Photo Festival 2015 has been a roaring success. Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for more festival news and recaps. 

Image Credits: Opening Night – Head On Photo Festival, Brydie Piaf. Georges Pacheco – Maelle et Keleti. Sandro Miller – Annie Leibovitz, Meryl Steep, NYC (1981), 2014. Christopher Morris, 2010, VII Photo Agency. Rus Anson.  Shunzan Fan. Michael Robinson Chavez. 

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Image detail: Gary Ramage