From more than 4,000 entries, we’re delighted and honoured to share the winners of The Mono Awards 2024 presented by Synology.
Now in its sixth year, the annual competition continues to draw the cream of the region’s black and white photographers.
This year, an imaginative, mysterious portrait by Brisbane’s Craig Stampfli, a powerful and technically perfect panorama by Canberra’s Wade Cramer and an artistic nature shot by South Australia’s Guy Draper have shared honours in the competition, which saw photographers compete for $18,000 in cash and prizes across three categories: People, Places and Animals.
People category winner, Craig Stampfli, Reaching Out. Craig Stampfli's image was a collaboration with NSW model Joanne, and was captured in Ocean shores, just north of Byron Bay. “The intention with this image was to capture her hands as they escaped the surface,” he says. “I wanted her hands to be sharp and defined, with less focus on her physique. The added bonus with this split image was that her face was obscured by the water’s edge. Although Joanne is a remarkably beautiful woman, I have been working on a series of underwater portraits where the subject’s face is obscured.”Places category winner, Wade Cramer, Flooded Fences. Wade tells us his striking minimalist image Flooded Fences was taken last year at Lake George on the way to Canberra. “We stopped as we had never seen the lake so calm,” he says. “There was such great light, and when I took the shot I had a monochrome image in mind. There is a beauty to the fence wires as they flow in and out of the water and then there is that juxtaposition between the flooding caused by lots of rain, a symptom of climate change, and the wind turbines as a possible solution to climate change,” he says.Animals category winner, Guy Draper, The colony. “When travelling recently through Iceland we came upon a colony of gulls nesting in the cliffs above the ocean,” explains Guy Draper. “Gulls were coming and going with nesting material, courting, fighting and fishing for a feed. The rocks were dark, the gulls and their waste was white and I instantly knew this needed to be a monochrome shot. To me, this is a shot with a load of individual stories to tell, like those from the occupants of a high rise apartment building.”
We’re hugely grateful to our star-studded judging panel, made up of Anthony McKee, Liz Ham, Dean Sewell, Tom Truong, Alex Cearns OAM, Chris Budgeon, Meg Hewitt, Jay Collier, Matt Palmer, Helen Whittle, Mike Langford and Jackie Ranken, who had the challenging task of choosing our winners this year.
We also want to thank our amazing sponsor Synology, who have generously supported us to run The Mono Awards.
The winners, runners-up and top 40 images in each of the three categories are published in the October/November issue of Australian Photography mag. It should be in newsstands and letterboxes next week.
From Wednesday, People's choice voting will kickoff on The Mono Awards Facebook page. This is your chance to vote for your favourite images, so make sure you vote for yours.
Finally, a huge thank you to all our amazing entrants who have turned The Mono Awards into a truly special showcase of the best black and white photography, and a true celebration of the diversity of this wonderful genre.
We hope you enjoy our winners and finalists as much as we do.
People category runner-up, Heidi Margocsy, Ascend. Heidi Margocsy’s runner-up winning image features subject Sheila Weppler-Robinson, and is part of a larger series entitled The Matriarchs. “In November 2023, I invited women over the age of 65 in my community to be a part of a portrait project focused on celebrating elder women,” she tells us. “In a youth-obsessed world (and having just turned 50 myself), I felt compelled to share a more empowering narrative than the often reductive societal portrayal of who women are as they age,” she says.People category, third place, Julie Spencer, Bonnie, after the party.People category, fourth place, Jasmine Skye, Underwater dancersPeople category, fifth place, Grant Smith, Lobster hunter.Places category runner-up, Julie Paice, Music endures. Julie Paice's runner-up image was taken at a place called Endeans Mill, Waimiha in a remote corner of the King Country in New Zealand’s North Island. “The mill is one of the last remaining examples of a native timber mill, but it closed 20 years ago,” explains Paice. “Much of the surrounding infrastructure remains more or less intact and across three hectares there is an assortment of old mill equipment, vehicles, sheds, mill worker houses, the steam engine that powered the mill, and processed native timber still stacked as it was left. It’s a photographer's dream!”Places category, third place, Craig Ford, Yosemite Valley Dawn.Places category, fourth place, Joanne Costanzo, Ice fossil.Places category, fifth place, Paul Anderson, Windblown Waterfall.Animals category runner-up, Lasitha Liyana Patabendi, It's time to go home. Captured at Lake Wyangan, in Campbell Swamp, Griffith, NSW, Patabendi’s runner-up winning image It’s time to go home is testament to his patience and clear vision. He tells us the image was captured at a local spot he regularly visits for silhouettes. “I observed this great Egret during sunset and noted I could make a dramatic image by getting myself lower to eye level and using the foreground bushes as a natural colour gradient,” he says. “Then it was a matter of waiting for the perfect take-off and framing it.”Animals category, third place, Brooke Pyke, Midnight dancers.Animals category, fourth place, Karen McNally, Talon touchdown.Animals category, fifth place, Jessica Shirley, Sheep circle.
