Page 6 - Australian Photography Feb 2022

Andy Rovenko’s unique and quirky series The Rocketgirl Chronicles, depicting his daughter and her trusty spacesuit exploring a ghostly Melbourne during lockdown, has taken out the highest honours in the 2021 Photographer of the Year, presented by Nokia.
Now in its ninth year, the competition is the largest of its kind for amateur photographers in Australasia and for 2021 had a prize pool valued at more than $30,000.
Rovenko’s series was captured during Victoria’s extended coronavirus lockdown and was almost a happy accident – the photographer says he never intended to make a series with his daughter as the star, rather he was just trying to come up with creative ways to keep her entertained during another dreaded lockdown.
For judge Tim Levy, every year it becomes more difficult to judge the competition and boil down to the final shortlisted photographs.
“There are so many great images captured by amateur photographers entered in the competition each year,” he says. “It also shows the importance of planning and taking your camera with you wherever you go – you never know when the stars will align and you will get an exceptional image.”
More than 3,000 entries were received in the annual competition which, for the major categories, challenges photographers to shoot four images that work together as a cohesive series.
From dramatic landscapes to heart rending portraits, and every genre in between, over the
following pages you can see our winners and runners-up in the competition along with comments from our judges on why they choose the images they did.
Before you turn the page, we’d like to thank our amazing sponsors as without their support we simply couldn’t run Photographer of the Year. Thank you to our major sponsor Nokia, and category sponsors SanDisk, Camera House, WD, World Photo Adventures, BenQ, Haida, LaCie, MSI and Epson for your ongoing support of amateur photographers.
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© ANDY ROVENKO
© CHANDRA BONG © SIMONE MATUCCI