Winners have been announced for the People’s Choice awards in the Open Program, Martin Kantor Portrait Prize and New Photography awards at the Ballarat International Foto Biennale.


©  Donna Crebbin, Revered, 2017, winner of the 2019 Open Program People’s Choice award.

Donna Crebbin took out the 2019 Open Program People’s Choice award for her exhibition Element, which is on display at Inexterior Cafe, 401 Mair St, Ballarat until late tomorrow. A 2018 Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year finalist, and named as one of Australian Photography magazine’s top 50 wildlife photographers in 2017, Donna produced an exhibition of photographs taken in the high country in eastern Australia, covering Mt Stirling (VIC), Kosciuzsko National Park (NSW) and Namadgi National Park (ACT).  These photographs visit heritage huts and follow Australia’s wild horses and other wildlife calling the mountains home in our coldest element.

©  Steve Young, PK in the Bay, 2014

Winner of the People’s Choice award in the 2019 Martin Kantor Portrait Prize is Steve Young for his photograph of Paul Kelly, who was photographed swimming near St Kilda in Victoria in 2014. Steve explains, “During a conversation with Paul I touched on the prevalence of water in his recent writings to which he replied, “Everywhere I go, each new place, the first thing I do is go and find the water. Lake, river, sea”. And so it was that we ended up in familiar waters off St Kilda for our first photo shoot in back in 2014.”


© Anton Gautama, The House Leader, 2018.

Winner of the People’s Choice in the inaugural Alane Fineman New Photography Award was Anton Gautama for his series The Outsider. The subject of Anton Gautama’s work is The Satan Building. Located in Surabaya, Indonesia and built during Dutch colonisation in the early 19th century, the once abandoned building retains an eerie historical mysticism. In the 1960s under Communist brutality, the building became a place of political refuge for Chinese Indonesians fearing for their lives. Today, the building houses more than thirty impoverished families suppressed by dogmatic governmental policies. The Outsider explores the history, economy, and sociology of The Satan Buildings as a place of safety, refuge and community as the final series in a trilogy photobook project.
The Ballarat International Foto Biennale will close on Sunday, 20 October.