CRAIG A. CHAMPION ︎ THE FIRST 2 MINUTES
During quarantine, the first important thing I noticed in the two minutes of every day was photographed. I decided I’d do this until my supply of film ran dry. It was a familiar act I theorized might steer the day into a pinch of normalcy. It would also become visual documentation of me attempting to ground myself to anything.
Why was this important?
My apartment wasn’t the only place I was locked down. It turned out, for decades my head had been constructing a rat trap of forgotten trauma and it decided spring it on me… In tandem with a bipolar episode.
After two minutes an ugly forgotten past would begin another assault. My bipolar would jumpstart its way out from its heavy spell of Trazodone, then the day started disintegrating. I needed to try to have an image of before that.
Taking these pictures was confusing. An annoying, senseless rote act that made me hate the art form I love most. However, the daily ritual and the streaming written thoughts that accompany were somehow vital. They got me through some dangerously difficult days and helped me in ways I’m still decoding.
The Series Project. Isolation. July. 2020.
IPA Winner: Fine Art Analog Category.
︎ CRAIG A. CHAMPION
The irresistibly eclectic themes gathered over the last twenty plus years in Craig’s photography may have sprouted from his nomadic youth. When living with his family in an RV, bouncing from campground to campground on a weekly basis, change, the unfamiliar, and new experiences were constant. This period of raw discovery, Craig recalls, was the best period of his life. He’s chosen to carry on the tradition as he’s traveled the world directing commercials, branded projects, and conducting photo shoots for a wide variety of international brands.
Craig’s most recent series, The First Two Minutes, was an IPA winner in its category, Fine Art, Analog. It was also a Jury Top 5 Selection Award recipient.
︎CRAIG’S WEBSITE
LORNA CARMICHAEL ︎ ME ENTRO EL GARRION
A meditation on longing.
“Me entro el garrion” es una expresion de la añoranza para los cubanos cuando el sentimiento de extrañar a sus costumbres, familia, hogar, amigos, se vuelve muy fuerte.
“I got the sparrow,” is an expression for when you miss in a strong way your habits, family, friends - when Cubans can’t handle that feeling they say that.
The Series Project. Havana. April 2023.
IPA Awards 2023 - Honorable Mention
IPA Awards 2023 - Official Selection
︎ LORNA CARMICHAEL
Lorna’s wanderlust as a child was fueled by whimsical family adventures with her Dad.
Daydreaming of sparkling oceans, Lorna left Scotland, after studying architecture at Glasgow School of Art, to explore sunnier lands. Always travelling with a camera, happenstance threw her into the world of visual storytelling.
A sucker for Romeo and Juliet, she was thrilled to work on Baz Luhrmann's epic 'Australia' as her inaugural feature film. Combining her love for adventure and film, she camped under the stars in the Australian outback, and then back in the film studios she was thrown into Visual Effects, where she worked alongside great directors and cinematographers creating magic on the film set. Lorna's film resume includes Narnia, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, J Edgar Hoover and The Night Manager.
4 continents, and many serendipitous journeys later, Lorna is a photographer and filmmaker based in Vancouver, Canada. Her photographic practice, influenced strongly by her work in feature film, is primarily focused on portraiture, street and photojournalism.
Lorna's photographs have been used in press publications, feature films, and by charitable organizations. Awards include a BAFTA nomination, and an IPA Honorable mention in the 2020 Press Photo Category. Her work has been exhibited by Lens Culture and in 'These Days - Works in Isolation', a group exhibition documenting our time in lockdown.
'Looking through the lens helps me express myself, and there is nothing I like more than following my curiosity, intuition and love of people.'
︎LORNA’S WEBSITE
LILI WATERS ︎ THE KISS OF DEATH
Isolation. Lockdown. A strange feeling in the air.
1.5 metres. No touching allowed.
Thoughts turn to how we took for granted being physically close to another.
Imagining a world where touch is a thing of the past.
A brush against a passing stranger. A hug. An arm around a friend.
The touch of another is highly charged and complex.
A stolen kiss now has the taste of danger, even possibly death.
The Series Project. Isolation. July. 2020.
Exhibited at The Laneway Gallery, Melbourne's GPO, 2020 and at 'Art in the Plague Year', UCR Arts, California Museum of Photography, 2021.
Shortlisted, Australian Photography Awards 2020.
Shortlisted, Top 20 Photo Oxford Festival 2020.
Featured in 'Jane by the Grey Attic' magazine, issue 8 'there were seeds.'
IPA Awards - Honourable Mention : Analog / Film: Portrait category.
Project featured in Luerzer’s Archive top 200.
︎ LILI WATERS
Lilli Waters (born 1983, Armidale, NSW) is a fine arts photographer whose work explores the human condition through dramatic images of the female form in haunting, windswept landscapes. A Lilli Waters image has a painterly quality, evoking the Pre-Raphaelites with macabre, foreboding elements, a jewel-like palette and a sensitive use of light. Waters makes use of translucent fabrics and long hair to obscure the identities of her subjects, suggesting that the image might be just as much a mirror for the viewer, as it is a portrait.
Lilli’s work has been exhibited to much acclaim in Italy, Germany, Japan, the UK, the US and Australia. Her images have appeared in publications around the globe – including Vogue Living (Aus), Belle Magazine (Aus), Art Aesthetica (UK), Austrian Living (Austria), Jane by the Grey Attic (Aus) and The Opera Magazine (Germany) as well as appeared in feature films, including Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed (USA). She has been a finalist in the Nillumbik Prize for Contemporary Art (2021), Fisher’s Ghost Art Award (2020), Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize (2020), Du Reitz Art Awards (2020), Percival Photographic Art Prize (2020), National Portrait Prize (2019), Australian Photography Awards (2018) and Art Aesthetica Art Award (2018).
︎LILI’S WEBSITE
SARAH LOUISE RAMSAY ︎ THE LAST FEW
By law the bulk of fish caught in Cuban waters must be handed to the state for distribution amongst the people. However, some of the poorest in Havana are brave enough to provide for their families by venturing out to sea using nothing more than inner tubes from
trucks and tractors as makeshift fishing rafts.
This is extremely dangerous, every voyage is both an adventure and an escape.
There used to be many. Now there are just a few.
The Series Project. Havana. April 2023.
︎ SARAH LOUISE RAMSAY
Sarah Louise Ramsay. Born and based in London, Sarah is an award winning commercial photographer whose work spans advertising, design, architecture, editorial and documentary including a wide body of extensively exhibited personal work.