Sydney Life 2012 (21 Sep - 21 Oct 2012)

Cover - Sydney Life - Art and About 2012
Page 12 - Sydney Life - Art and About 2012
Page 13 - Sydney Life - Art and About 2012
21 SEPTEMBER - 21 OCTOBER 2012
CENTRAL WALKWAY
HYDE PARK NORTH

With a unique lens on who we are and the city we live in, the finalists in this year’s much-loved Sydney Life exhibition capture our city in fresh and surprising ways.From a close-up on the personal to a wide-angle view on our collective joys and sorrows, the stunning large-scale photographs of this year’s 22 finalists are as diverse, interesting and exciting as Sydney itself. Wander beneath the canopy of leaves and see images that reveal a city which never ceases to fascinate.

Sydney Life Tours

Join Sydney Life judge Sandy Edwards for a free tour of this year’s exhibition.

Meet at Archibald Fountain.

Friday 21 September, 7-8pm
Saturday 13 October, 2-3pm

Hyde Park North
Free

Sydney Life judging panel

Liane Rossler

Known as a passionate ambassador for issues relating to design and the environment, Liane presented Happy Talk with Heidi Dokulil at last year’s Art & About Sydney. Other recent work includes Supercyclers, a design project focused on clever and beautiful re-use of waste shown at Milan Design Week. Liane was also a co-founder and former designer and director of Dinosaur Designs.

Moshe Rosenzveig

Moshe Rosenzveig is the founder and director of Head On Photo Festival, the world’s second-largest event of its kind which runs in Sydney annually in May.

His career spans over 30 years as a photojournalist, commercial photographer, educator and an award winning television producer/director whose work has been screened, published and exhibited in Australia and overseas.

Sandy Edwards

Sandyis the founder of ARTHERE – an organisation that provides services to photographers for exhibitions and projects in Sydney and Australia. She is also a curator at Stills Gallery,Sydney’s most established photography gallery
Page 14 - Sydney Life - Art and About 2012
Page 15 - Sydney Life - Art and About 2012
The Sydney Life Prize

Congratulations to Sally McInerney, the 2012 winner of the Sydney Life Prize. The judges determined that Sally’s image ‘Shark in pool, Dover Heights’ was the most outstanding work in the selection of 22 finalists, and have awarded her the prize of $10,000.
The 2012 Sydney Life Prize - Sally McInerney - Shark in pool

The Finalists

1. 01 Adrian Cook (*) / blog (*): Dog Day Afternoon. Winner of the Wenty Park Mongrel Cup 2011.


2. Marco Bok (*) / SMH:Tue 10 Jan 2006 (*): Lifesavers Bondi Beach. Candid photo of a lifesaving exercise. From a large unpublished series on Bondi Beach made whilst living there.


3. Garry Trinh (*) / Google (*): Super Size Hamburger. A re-examining of everyday life in Sydney.


4. Graham Monro (*) / blog (*): Modern Family. A typical Sydney family in 2012, everyone is connected, but no one is talking.


5. Jennifer Blau (*) / blog (*): It’s time to wake up and become sustainable. Walking in the bush opposite her home on Sydney’s North Shore, Robyn calls for a more sustainable life.


6. Maylei Hunt (*) / Google (*): Let Them Eat Wedding Cake. Sydney residents have been taking the streets to protest for the Equal Rights for Gay Marriage in Australia. It’s time.


7. Ingvar Keene (*): Cormac Malabar Pool. Last light and last swim after a long hot summer day.


8. Louise Whelan (*) / Google (*): By the Pool. Kira Hula Hoops beside the pool for the 75th Anniversary of North Sydney Pool.


9. Lyndal Irons (*) / blog (*): Wash n’ Wax Ronaldinho. Youths spend Saturday night playing football at a late night carwash in Concord. From the series Parramatta Road.


10. Jenny Evans (*) / Google (*): Above Sydney. Dudley Page Reserve in Dover Heights provides a stunning view of Sydney Harbour.


11. Hugh Peterswald (*) / Google (*): Celebrity Wave Sydneysiders crowd to see US television celebrity Oprah as she leaves from her lunch in Bondi.


12. Matt Kaarma (*) / Google (*): Contact. Whilst Sydney parties, dines and dances, soldiers stationed on the outskirts of the city train hard for war.


13. Tamara Dean (*): Chelsea & Caroline Hibernian House. From my new series depicting images of young contemporary Australian women within their environments.


14. Daniel Gibbs (*) / blog (*): Secret Women’s Business. Girls on a school excursion in Botany Bay National Park huddle around an Aboriginal Elder to learn some secrets; I was excluded!


15. Roman Balla (*): Winter Sunseekers. My mother is 86 this year. On sunny winters days she tries to warm herself and her guinea pig "Squeek".


16. Richard Payne (*): Women Shopping in Auburn. Sydney is a diverse city and I wanted to show the diversity of life through an image of an every day activity.


17. Sally McInerney (*) / Google (*): Shark in pool, Dover Heights. Someone had added a shark to an estate agent’s auction sign overlooking the ocean.


18. Alex Davies (*) / Google (*): Hubub. Justin Shoulder drifts through Hyde Park as Hubub during APEC protests Sydney.


19. Ann-Maree Moodie (*) / Google (*): Bunnies on the Line. Sometimes there is such a thing as too much lovin’ and intervention is required – warm, soapy water and a day in the sun hanging from the quintessential icon of the Australian backyard.


20. Bryce Watanasoponwong (*): We look great. Three Sikh followers view their self-posed image, taken on a mobile phone, during the Vaisakhi festival at Martin Place.


21. Cassandra French (*): Historic Chinese Market Gardens. I would love to see these heritage gardens protected and preserved. They are under serious threat from the neighbouring cemetery which is looking for more land for burial plot


22. Deb Kent (*): Cake on a Hot Summer’s Day. On a sweltering hot summers day the rosy cheeked party girls stand watching their cakes melt away.

On Life Purpose - Niña Terol (Wed 23 Jul 2003)

Listen to your heart - Erskineville (Sep 2012)
Niña Terol (*) writes (*) on Life Purpose (*):

Paulo Coelho says, "To realize one's destiny is a person's only obligation."

I'm not fatalistic, and I still believe that we make our choices. Nothing is pre-destined to the point where we're no longer required to act on anything. But I believe that signs guide us to the right path, so that we can achieve our dreams sooner.

These signs are found within us, in the stillness of our hearts, in the deepest recesses of our being.

To actually see them, and recognize them for what they are, we have to clear ourselves of all doubts, fears, and worries. We've got to remove the trappings that stay stuck inside us. We've got to know who we really are and what we're really meant to do. It's a painful task, but it will be even more painful to go through life not knowing our life's purpose, our life's worth.

Listen to your heart. Just try.

(I've always been a mind-over-heart person, but the moment I listened to my heart everything just fell into place. "When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.")

From Paulo Coelho-isms (Dedicated to my friend, Ellen Joy) (*) via Five Years in Paulo Coelho’s blog (*) and Five Years in Paulo Coelho’s blog (*).

Stumbled across this today. Funny how things work out. Here is a photo from around the initial post was made. Always puts a smile on my face.

Smile - Jenny after a long Chemo Session that day - Kogarah (Jul 2003)

On Life Purpose - Hands Clean - Alanis Morissette / Live from Abbey Road (YouTube)

Hands Clean - Alanis Morissette (*) / Live from Abbey Road Live (*) [Youtube (*)]
At the end of the first song Hands Clean (*), Alanis gives this amazing calm and lucid insight into fame and her life purpose. Here it is:

[On] Fame. At this point I would say that it is a planetary value - wealth, fame, power at the cost of everything else.

So I think that value being shared around the planet creates in people this thought that if I am famous, I will be happy.

And what I have come to see is that fame only amplified that which was there already.

So if I was depressed or I if I was insecure or if I was angry or whatever it was it just amplified it.

It made everything bigger and it did not sort of give, give me what it had been sort of purported to be able to give.

And so there was this great disillusionment.

[On Life Purpose] At this point in my life I am clearer that I share music because it is part of my life purpose.

To write it is, the act of writing it is for me and the act of sharing it is so that other people can make it their own - they can derive comfort, inspiration or whatever they want to derive from it.

So it becomes an offering of some kind and because of that I can do it and I can work really hard.

If I were singularly doing it to just be in the public eye for gratuitous reasons, than I would probably last about an hour.

This was recorded sometime in 2008, I am guessing. I saw it late one night on the ABC in February 2009 (*).

It was a rather random viewing and because I knew of Alanis' music, I decided to record her segment of the show on my PVR.

Over the ensuing months I would watch it repeatedly, often in the middle of the night, when Jenny had fallen into a deep sleep. I was mesmerised by Alanis' voice, the musicians that supported her and the live performance. In some ways this video takes me back to those last few months with Jenny and the sense of innocence (*) we all had with what we were about to confront (*).

Alanis' words, reflects the the depth of her experience and her delivery touched me back in 2009, and they touch me even more now because of the memories they evoke three years on, as well as her insights into life purpose, something that I have had to grapple with when you feel you have fulfilled your purpose in life.

This recording takes me back to those nights before Jenny's passing where I would watch this video safe in the comfort that she was in the next room, breathing and still with us.

Tonight, I have captured this part of my life here - I tried to add it to my blog back in early 2010, but it was too hard back then. For some reason it seems right to add it now, though I have not been able to fully explain here why. I just think it is amazing.

Onward Forward - To the Summit - 6th Step / Mt Fuji (Wed 19 Sep 2012)

Onward Forward - To the Summit - 6th Step / Mt Fuji (Wed 19 Sep 2012)
We asked whether they would take our photo, which they kindly did. And then Jo took a photo of them on one of their own camera's, where I had the opportunity to capture this photo.

The 6th step is about 6km on track and about 1km in elevation from the Summit. We had to turn around here (we had a tight schedule on buses and trains to get back to Tokyo that evening), but they were continuing on to the Summit from here.

I think it would be possible to reach the Summit from Tokyo and back again in a day. Just not sure how we would handle the higher elevations and change in oxygen levels that goes with it.

A day for all to remember and a Mt Fuji summit is definitely on the agenda when we return to Japan sometime soon. A few Mt Fuji photos to follow.

Intersection - Shinjuku / Tokyo (Wed 19 Sep 2012)

Intersection - Shinjuku / Tokyo (Wed 19 Sep 2012)
The first steps on the way to and back from Mt Fuji that day. One of the better Intersection photos from the trip. A little bit of rain always helps saturate the colours.

On Persistence and Vincent van Gogh - Timothy Standring / NY Times (Sun 28 Oct 2012)

Vincent van Gogh - The Met / New York City (Mon 15 Aug 2011)
Timothy Standring on Vincent van Gogh and Persistence:

We all think he’s a genius, but he placed a lot of value on craftsmanship. When he started, he had no talent for drawing. If you look at his early drawings, they’re horrible. So how did he develop?”

The answer, Mr. Van Tilborgh said, was persistence. “If he couldn’t do it, he tried it 50 more times. He was one of those rare artists who had the energy to work through the fear of failure.

Via The Genius in us All (*) from New York Times (*).

USC - Oxford St / Sydney (Sat 13 Oct 2012)

USC - Oxford St / Sydney (Sat 13 Oct 2012)
USC (Detail) - Oxford St / Sydney (Sat 13 Oct 2012)