VETERAN Canberra photographer Judy Parker is the winner of the $10,000 Mullins Australian Conceptual Photography Prize.

Although the finalists’ exhibition is hanging at Magnet Gallery in Melbourne, because of the lockdown the winners were announced via Zoom tonight (July 9).

Parker receives the prize for her winning work “Dumpster Sketchbook: Waterside”, which will be acquired by Magnet Gallery.

A member of the Australian Photographic Society and its contemporary group. She was also a finalist in 2019 and had two images as finalists this year.

She says: “Recently I took a series of photographs of the side panels of a large open container at a local recycling centre. The markings had a wonderfully strong graphic quality, red rust-lines on a silver-painted surface: a calligraphy of wear and tear.”

“When I processed my images, I was intrigued by the way sections of the random patterns suggested a series of semi-abstract coastal landscapes, each quite different. I modified three of these to reinforce the reference and combined them as a triptych. Our minds are not limited to the literal. They can equally re-identify and re-imagine,” she says.

The works of five other Canberra photographers, Ian Skinner, Lyndall Gerlach, Sophie Dumaresq, Mark Van Veen and Brian Rope, were featured among the 34 finalist images chosen.

First-time entrant Louise Alexander of Halls Head, WA, received the Emergent Designs Award of a $1000 voucher for her work “Beige Chair”, themed around not wanting to be seen, while Anne O’Connor of Launceston, Tasmania, received the Momento Pro Award of a $250 voucher for her work “The Price of Water”.

All finalists who were not APS members are granted free membership for 12 months from today and every finalist will also receive a Reg Satin 170 perfect bound book containing all the winning and finalist images.

The exhibition of the 34 finalists’ works continues to hang at Magnet Galleries, SC G19 Wharf Street, The District, Docklands, Melbourne until August 1.

The awards were judged by Australian Photographic Society members Jacqui Dean, Judith Nangala Crispin and Julie Williams.

The winning works and those of all the other finalists, may be viewed online, here.