2022 Geelong Design Week Event | The Nature of Us Photography Competition
The Nature of Us Photography Competition has now closed. Click here to see the list of finalists and find out where you can see them exhibited.
The Nature of Us is an exciting, community photographic exhibition about the need to recognise nature in our city and the role it plays in our wellbeing. We are inviting people to send in images of how nature helps them feel a sense of belonging to where they live. This is an initiative of The School of Lost Arts, Geelong, together with the City of Greater Geelong Department of Environment and Biodiversity and Revitalising Central Geelong.
The images will be shown as part of an event in Geelong Design Week 2022 which has the theme Taur/ Belonging. Showing why nature is vital for our sense of connection to place has never been more important. The best photographs selected by a judging panel will be printed as part of the exhibition.
Why is it important?
We live at a time of unprecedented change. A global pandemic has upended everything about how we live our lives and many of us are struggling to come to terms with this. Connecting with why we feel at home in a place is vitally important. All this change also gives us a unique opportunity to evaluate how we live now and the urban design choices we are making. Will they stand our communities in good stead for future changes?
Running in parallel with our immediate challenges is the growing threat of climate change, forcing us to question how we can live best on this planet now and in the future while maintaining biodiversity as well as the health of our environment for the next generations. Unexpectedly the effect of restrictions on our daily lives has also helped us re-examine our relationship with our immediate environment. Many of us have found solace during lockdown with walking around our neighbourhood, discovering local parks, small interactions with the natural world as well as growing and cooking our own food.
How we belong to a place is deeply connected to our relationship with nature. So, this is an opportunity to capture what is important to you about the environment around you
Urban nature, plants and animals with which we share our home, even perhaps the unexpected joy of a tiny plant growing in a concrete path.
Nature needs us to shout out for her now. To be heard as to why it is important, especially as more of us live in cities. Grab your phone, or camera and help us capture a portrait of our home in nature as never before. We want the natural world to be part of planning the design of where we live. It could just change our city forever.
What do I photograph?
We want to capture our relationship with everyday nature, here in our city, our backyards or our favourite spot in nature. We want pictures that show why we care about the natural world, us in urban nature, the funny, the quirky and why it is important not simply nature photography. To give you some ideas, here are the three categories for entries and some suggestions of what we are looking for:
1. Nature in the City
Putting Down Roots - Trees, plants and us, indoor, outdoor, wild growing things that are important to us and why. What is our relationship with plants?
Green At Heart - What we love about central Geelong’s Green Spine and our city parks. Urban nature
Surprising Nature - Nature where you least expect it. Life can emerge anywhere when we look out for it. Birds nesting under a roof, a tiny lizard on a rock, a plant emerging from the pavement, a spider’s web in the morning light.
2. Nature and Us
My 5km wilderness - Nature and neighbourhood refuges that sustained us, especially during the pandemic and in lockdown
Friends Between Species - Friendship knows no bounds. Feeding a local wild bird, your special cactus, a special tree. Animals that matter to us
Seeds of Hope - Children and Nature; how they see the world. School projects that connect to nature
3. Nature and our Homes
Homing Instinct - The plants, nature, animals we love in our home
Food for Thought - Growing and eating as connecting to nature’s cycles, home grown food, picnics in a special place, family time outside
Home Range - Design with nature inspiration such as natural materials in the home, a view from a window, nature inspired objects.
Ballarat International Foto Biennale example of outdoor Photograph Exhibition
The Exhibition of Finalists
The competition entries selected as finalists by the judging panel will be exhibited as part of Geelong Design Week 2022, 17-27 March 2022.
The best eight entries will be printed and shown in an exhibition in the National Wool Museum, Geelong.
A further number of the best selected images will be shown in an exciting outdoor exhibition in a paste up gallery in Denny’s Place off Little Malop Street Geelong during Geelong Design Week 2022 in association with Revitalising Central Geelong.
Who can enter?
This project is about recording people’s experience of nature, especially in the city and close to home. It is open to adults and children alike. It is as much about why you want to capture the image as it is about photographic quality although that will help!
The story of the image is important. The image needs to be the work of the person submitting the entry. Entrants under the age of 18 will require the consent of a parent or guardian. Any images with people in them also require the permission of that person to enter. Both requirements are part of the entry form.
Judging panel
Dr Luke Keogh, Senior Curator, National Wool Museum
Caleb Plumridge, True South Films
Dr Mary-Jane Walker, The School of Lost Arts
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
This is an initiative of The School of Lost Arts, Geelong (TSOLA) and exhibition partners
1. By entering the Competition, the entrant accepts and agrees to be bound by these Terms and Conditions (Terms).
2. To be eligible to enter the Competition must have personally taken the photograph(s) that he or she intends to submit. It is open to adults and children but children under 18 must have the permission of a parent or guardian as needs to be indicated in the entry form.
3. The Competition will open on 18 December 2021 and close at 5.00pm on 20 February 2022. Late entries will not be accepted.
4. One image may be submitted by any entrant.
5. Entries, along with a fully completed entry form for each image, may be submitted via the online entry form. Only images and forms submitted this way will be accepted.
6. Entries should be highest original (native) resolution possible if using an android or iPhone or in JPG format at 300dpi for cameras with that specificity.
7. To be eligible to enter the Competition, the photograph(s) must be in a high-resolution format which can be reproduced for high quality print and be in line with the theme Nature of Us
8. Entries which do not comply with these Terms will not be accepted.
9. TSOLA takes no responsibility for lost or late entries or corrupt digital files.
10.It is the entrant’s responsibility to obtain the necessary permissions from people who appear in a photograph and indicate this on the entry form as shown.
11. Images should depict natural photography; this includes natural landscapes, images of nature birds and animals and people’s connection to nature as described in the entry information. Any image deemed offensive or inappropriate in any way will be removed from the competition.
12. By entering this Competition, the entrant warrants that such permissions have been obtained in writing and agrees to provide copies to TSOLA upon request.
13. Entries may be submitted in both landscape and portrait orientation; however, TSOLA prefers entries that are of portrait orientation.
14. Eight entries will be selected and printed for inclusion in the National Wool Museum as part of Geelong Design Week 2022, 17-17 March 2022. A further number of selected images will be shown during Geelong Design Week in an outdoor exhibition. The exhibition will also include the artist’s statement description of the image which is equally important in selection. Selected entries will be notified of their inclusion in the finalists
15. Entries selected to feature may have to cropped to suit exhibition and print purposes.
16. All entrants to the Competition agree to give TSOLA the right the reproduce their image in print and online marketing material, to promote awareness of this event. This right is nonexclusive, and images will not be shared with any third party, or used for profit.
17. Where reasonable (in TSOLA’s view) photographs published under these Terms will include a photographer credit.
18. All entries will be judged after the Competition closing date by a panel of judges. The panel will be available on The School of Lost Arts website at the time of competition entry. The entries will be judged as capturing the subject matter in the most creative manner. The selected entrants will be contacted following the competition closing date advising them of successful selection.
19.TSOLA’s decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.
Enter Here
If form is not visible below click here to enter