Blink Photography Awards: Winners announced

A striking image by Jesse Pretorius that captured a group of relaxed sun bathers in Hong Kong’s central Mong Kok district has taken the top honour in the City’s Blink Photography Awards 2020.

The photographer described the image as juxtaposing the leisurely pursuit of sunbathing with the ongoing democratic protests happening in the region in late 2019. 

Held every two years, the Blink Photography Awards offer a stunning showcase for innovative and original new works from Australian amateur photographers.

This year’s contest explored the theme “The world can change in the blink of an eye. When it does, we learn about ourselves and what we truly value” and entrants were encouraged to submit their strongest image that responded to the theme in one of four categories – People, Places, Altered and Open.

The City received close to 300 submissions this year, and 2020 marked the first time that the awards were held online. Here is a full list of winners and highly commended entrants:

Winner overall - ‘HK Bathers’ Jesse Pretorius (Ellenbrook)
Highly Commended: People Category - ‘Entrapped’ Emilio Cresciani (interstate)
Highly Commended: Places Category - ‘Australia within Australia’ Amanda Manning (regional WA)
Highly Commended: Altered Category - ‘Pride’ Mitchell Page (Canning Vale)
Highly Commended: Open Category - ‘Gulp’ Phillip Elliot (Bayswater)
Winner Youth Award: ‘Remorse’ Annabelle Watling (Coolbinia)
Winner City of Stirling Resident Award: ‘Safe to Dance’ Alan Rogers (Innaloo)

An independent judging panel that represented the City’s values and diversity as well as the different aspects of photographic appreciation and expertise such as academia, community camera clubs and fine art reviewed this year’s entries. 

The judging panel was extremely impressed with the standard of the entries, offering honourable mentions to many entrants that did not receive awards.

An online exhibition is now live via the City’s website and the public can vote in the People’s Choice Award online poll until Monday 30 November 2020. The winner will be announced on Tuesday 1 December 2020.

City of Stirling Mayor Mark Irwin said the new online version of the awards offering free entry proved extremely popular and effectively prompted more entrants.  

“This year, we ended up attracting about 100 more entrants than we did in the 2018 awards, so it was a great result,” Mayor Irwin said.

“The new format also provided the opportunity for some entrants to share very personal, touching stories along with their photos, so I would encourage everyone to take a look at the online exhibition.”

Head to www.stirling.wa.gov.au/photo to view the exhibition and vote for the People's Choice Award.