Proud Peacock

SINCE Malcolm Peacock won the $8000 Fremantle International Portrait Prize his social media pages have gone into meltdown.

“And a major UK photography magazine want to do an article,” competition organiser Dale Neill says.

Peacock’s winning entry Titanium Man is a tongue-and-cheek portrait of a triathlete in his garden, getting buckets of water thrown on him by his mum.

By the end of the shoot the triathlete was completely drenched and freezing cold.

“Hence the intense expression on his face,” Peacock says.

Queenslander Peter Rossi took out second prize and a $6000 Nikon voucher for 60th Wedding Anniversary.

The fifth biennial FIPP had a record 1825 entries from Australia, Croatia, Hungary, Indonesia, Vietnam, the UK and US.

The winning entries had a big impact on a Notre Dame psychology lecturer, FIPP chair Lawrie Beilin says.

“She said ‘I used to think photographers were nearly all egocentric, but in the diversity of these images I see pathos, humour, caring and artistic expression. They are about humanity. I’m going back to re-look at my own personal photography’.”

The number of mobile phone entries doubled this year, with Sarah Fairbanks’s Dreamy Sunday winning first prize.

The Steward’s mobile award went to Fremantle snapper Laura Holdsworth, and Bicton local Liv Stockley took out an excellence award.

All of the money raised by FIPP usually goes to the Arthritis and Osteoporosis Foundation, but for the first time this year some of the proceeds will go to the Kai Eardley Foundation, named after the East Fremantle 20-year-old who took his own life in 2016.

His family set up the foundation to help other young people facing mental health problems. You can see all the winning entries at the Moore’s Building on Henry Street in Fremantle, until tomorrow (Sunday October 27).

By JENNY D’ANGER

Leave a Reply