THEMES can emerge in portrait competitions and this year’s Fremantle International Portrait Prize is at times confronting, with images of horrific burns and heart-wrenching disability, organiser and founder Dale Neil says.
But reading the back story you realise there’s more going on: “They’re not sob stories but stories of inspiration.”
The competition kicked off in 2012, rapidly gaining popularity, and is now ranked third in size nationally.
This year saw 1865 entries from 29 countries, including the US and UK, Hungary, Argentina, Belgium and Bangladesh.
Such is FIPP’s reputation, photographers boast on their website if they’re a finalist, Neil says.
All 109 finalists, chosen by three independent judges, will be on display during the Fremantle Festival.
The winners are set to be announced tonight (Saturday October 24), but the Herald got a sneak preview of the stunning portraits — and the winners of the packers’ prizes.
In Johannes Reinhart’s Offspring, the photographer’s young son gives him the finger at the last minute.
Youth is wasted on the youth.
“I couldn’t believe my eyes, he gave me the finger, like a real naughty boy.”
The steward liked the “power and impact” of the shot, and “the fact of its confrontation,” Neil says.
Second-place packers went to a photo of an Aboriginal man: “He’s standing in front of a rough old shed in the red dirt, wearing a battered old hat, a typical old outback bloke…But he has put on a clean shirt for the photo.”
The exhibition, which includes a life-size portrait of Docker Nat Fyfe, and images of Tim Minchin, Sir Bob Geldof and former WA premier Brian Burke looking very Alfred Hitchcock, is on at the Moores building in Henry Street, Fremantle West End till November 1.
Gold coin donation and artists’ $20 entry fees go to Arthritis and Osteoporosis WA. To date FIPP has donated more than $52,000 to the local organisation.
by JENNY D’ANGER