The Mono Awards 2020 - The People's Choice winners!
Recently, we announced the winners of the second annual running of The Mono Awards, but today I’m thrilled to bring you the results of the vote in the People’s Choice Award.
And the people have spoken, loud and clear, voting the images below as their absolute favourites. Interest this year was so great that the image with the highest number of votes eclipsed results from last year.
Run by Capture and Australian Photography, The Mono Awards celebrates the finest black-and-white photography across Australia and New Zealand.
Category winners of the People’s Choice each take home $250 cash plus a $250 voucher from our major sponsor, digiDirect.
The winners
Animals
Shot while on foot at Mana Pools, Hurungwe in Zimbabwe, Graham Morgan’s image, Zambezi Welcome, not only won the People’s Choice in the Animal category with the highest number of votes across all three categories, with 634 when voting closed, it also placed second in category when rated by our panel of judges.
While the image was captured using a 24-105mm lens, at a 50mm zoom, Morgan claims that the “butt-clench factor” was almost a perfect score, coming in at 9.9.
“Elephants in the wild are found in beautiful places; crowds of people not so much,” he said. “Walking at Mana Pools with a camera is an endless source of delight, with a dash of beautiful defiance. I’ve been doing this regularly since the turn of the century – nothing is staged, not even a tiny bit. This place has forged eclectic neuronal connections within me, stewarded by a Zimbo bushman without peer, Humphrey Gumpo. I treat this place with reverence and tread with great respect. It is my Church and the deity is the wild.”
www.instagram.com/graham_morgan_pics
People
Robin Yong’s image, A little bit of Bruce, took out the People’s Choice vote in the People category. The title of the image, captured in Old Havana, Cuba, refers to Bruce Weber – a photographer whose works Yong says he has always admired.
Of the image which clocked an impressive 482 votes, Yong said: “The contrasting elements of the young and the old. The rebel and the wise, and, above all, the love of grandma... In reality, this is just a street photo. The guy, Jose, is a friend and we were walking the streets of Old Havana. He's a wannabe model and has gotten so big lately that he couldn't find a shirt that fits him. As for the old lady, no one knew who she was. It's just Cuba, where the locals will still walk up to us and chat us up...
Places
David Munro’s image, Flow, took out the People’s Choice for the Places category with 300 votes. Captured from a helicopter in south Iceland, Munro says the photograph reveals “glacial melted water flowing towards the sea. The water flow struggles to find paths across vast areas of black volcanic ash, sand, and lava rocks that result in these unique and intricate patterns when seen from the air.”
You can see all the winning images from the judges' picks right here.