I’ve been familiar with Absorb for only a short time but I’m constantly impressed. They conceptualise, produce and deliver fashion films and photo-shoots with the aim of challenging the current creative status of editorial content.

SPONSOR

David Jo Bradley is an Australian documentary photographer based in London. Of this confronting photo series, Cabbage Patch Politics, he says: ‘It’s an autobiographical documentation of my experiences with the cultural phenomenon of Bogans. I suppose you could say it’s a love story: I’ve always had a timid fascination for these rampant beast-people. As a small boy I lived in a rural town in Western Australia: going to school with Bogans meant I learnt their culture’.

‘Later, when I was a city kid with a camera, I started talking to them in bars, getting drunk with them. They would accept me, and I would photograph them. They liked me because I bought them drinks and ran amok with them, I suppose. Cabbage Patch Politics (the name relating to the callow nature of Bogan interaction) are photographs from 08 and 09, in bars, festivals, parties and sitting around Bogan houses’.

Projections is a national competition open to all Australian-based photography students, photographic assistants and photographers and photo artists that have been established for three years or less. Emerging photographers are invited to submit a series or body of work shot in the last twelve months in the categories of Commercial, Documentary or Art.

The work of fifteen finalists will be put together in an audio-visual screening in High Definition quality with contemporary music and design and shown in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Canberra theatres in September. Projections provides emerging photographers with the opportunity to gain career-building exposure within the photographic industry and wider creative community and offers inspiration for all photography professionals and enthusiasts. Entries close midnight, June 30. To find out how to enter, go here.

Vee Speers was born in Australia and has been living in Paris since 1990. Her most recent work, The Birthday Party, is a series of short stories linked by the theme of an imaginary birthday party. In a conceptual and technical departure from her previous work, it is partly a self-portrait, sometimes woven with threads from her own childhood.

All you photographers out there, a word up on one of the most prodigious emerging photographers in Australia. And if you’re nursing an inadequacy complex, seeing Nirrimi Hakanson’s folio might propel you to briefly flee your aspirations and think about getting a job at the local supermarket. Hopefully, it will inspire you. The self-taught sixteen-year-old Hakanson has been taking photos on a digital SLR since the age of thirteen, after starting out on a disposable camera. Her distinctive style is ethereal and reminiscent of photo albums filled with enchanted childhood memories.

Her subjects (both friends and professional models) are cast in romantic portraits, in sophisticated fashion shots, in scenes of teenagers posing unaffectedly in everyday realms. What stands out amongst the girlish nymphs making friendship pacts with the sunshine is a certain rawness you don’t often see in fashion-oriented photography. This is partly due to Hakanson’s preference for natural light and emotive settings and most certainly due to her visionary nature. This week, Hakanson was announced the winner of the National Youth Week’s junior photography competition.

SPONSOR

Australian photographer, Sean Fennessy, was named by Art and Australia Magazine in 2006 as one of the ‘country’s best artists aged under 25′. These photos are from a larger series on Shanghai called Over the Rainbow.

Featuring some of the finest young photographers that Aussie fashion magazine Frankie has run over the years, Pretty in Print is an exhibition of fashion pages and the photographers behind the shoot at Sydney’s MTV Gallery between 6-10pm on August 13. There’ll be music from Fergus, Des Miller, and others, amongst all the wonderful photography from Ezra Patchett, Amanda Austin, Julia Schauenburg [work above], and more. To win a VIP ticket for the event (including a goodie bag, and who doesn’t love a goodie bag!), just leave a message under this post saying why you really, really want to go. Yes, yes, we know you do.

NEOSYDNEY+NEOTOKYO is a photographic exhibition of street pop photography and images of the everyday, portraying a narrative of the life and heart of two city hubs. Inspired by Tokyo’s alluring city lights, Japanese pop culture and the influences of the hip Japanese photographer Hiromix, the dark space is embellished with neon lights and light boxes featuring snapshots of Sydney and Tokyo. The exhibition at Sydney’s Japan Foundation Gallery is free and runs until June 25th.