Matthew Newton Photography blog

Moonbird boy 2 is among 34 images by some of Australia’s best photographers in the running for the $25 000 William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize.

The 34 final photographs were selected from approximately 2,000 photographs submitted by 473 entrants. One of these finalists will win the $25 000 prize.

Established in 2006 to promote excellence in photography, the annual non-acquisitive William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize is an initiative of the MGA Foundation. Among Australia’s most important art prizes, the Bowness Prize is the country’s most coveted photography prize.

This year’s winner of the $25 000 prize will be announced at MGA on Thursday 23 September 2010.

All the finalists images can be viewed here

One of my images has been selected as a finalist in this years Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize.  It is Australia’s richest prize with the winner taking away $80,000.

The winner will be announced in Sydney at the exhibition opening on the 10th of August. At the very least its a great excuse to head up there and catch up with a bunch of great photographers and spend a few days seeing what is going on in Sydney.

This image is not in the bush as it appears, but one city block from the CBD of Hobart.

In April 2010 forestry burn offs shrouded the town of Huonville south of Hobart in smoke for four days. Residents were told to stay indoors with the windows sealed  if they experienced asthma. A week later conservationists turned the tables on Forestry Tasmania, filling their head office atrium with smoke.

"I'm a fire starter"

A selection of images from my series The Forests has been shown at MountainFilm In Telluride USA.

Currently in its 32nd year, the Mountainfilm Festival is a four-day, six-senses experience of art, adventure, culture and the environment. It attracts filmmakers, photographers, conservationists, mountaineers and explorers from around the world.

This year the International League of Conservation Photographers held an event showcasing images from around the world under the theme of extinction.

Its great have this body of work chosen under the banner of the ILCP, a non-profit organisation that works to further environmental and cultural conservation through ethical photograph.

The Weld Valley, Southern Tasmania.

A documentary I shot is screening on ABC television every sunday night this month.

The Mission is the story of missionaries in reverse, as three young Nigerian Catholic priests, who haven’t volunteered, who have never left Africa before, are sent to save Tasmania’s struggling Church.

“Australia is not in Africa and then as the definition goes, it is at the end of the world, that concern that you are going to the end of the world you know, could make one shudder”

Father Felix Ekeh

I followed the priests for a year in Tasmania and had my first experience directing the Nigerian section of the documentary. screening details

Stills from the Nigerian section of the shoot are on my website

Last year I worked on a number of film productions shooting stills. Mostly on drama productions. I really like shooting stills, its fantastic working with great lighting, talent and in a really dynamic and at times highly charged environment.

I have just put a new folio on my main site with film stills from the last year or so you can see them here.

Sill from Tasmanian production, Stripped Bare

A photo essay from a trip I did to Ladakh last year is in the summer addition of Wild Magazine.  Its not often that as a photographer you are 100% happy with the way your images are layed out. It is very difficult to control and at the end of the day you usually have to roll with the punches and hope for the best. This was one of the rare cases when an editor had the time, or made the time to work closely with me on all aspects of the article and the result, I think, is really good. As a photographer to be involved in the whole process from taking the images to layout is really rewarding and a very rare opportunity  in todays world. Wild may not be the biggest budget and highest profile magazine in the country but the professionalism and respect they show to there contributors is really something.

If you are interested in some more images from that part of the world there are more on my portfolio website.

It’s that time of the year again when stories about food and drink are in the news. Recently I shot some images for the Weekend Australian Magazine about a great little brewery in the Derwent Valley near Hobart. The Two Meter Tall Company is a farm based brewery where the Ale is made using ingredients they grow. It doesn’t get much  better than that! 

One of the best things about my work is finding little gems like this in my own back yard and meeting the people behind them. Ashley Huntington runs the show out at 2MT he has refurbished a collection of old wooden vats and is putting them to good use in his brewery making Ale the way it should be made.

A short documentary I made last summer called The Ditch has been screened at the Kendal Mountain Festival in the UK. It’s about a friend of mine, Paul Pritchard who has an aquired brain injury from a rock climbing accident. Last summer Paul rafted the Franklin River.

Kendal is by far the largest and most varied event of its type in Europe and it’s the main social event for outdoor enthusiasts in the UK. At the heart of Kendal’s programme is the mountain film competition, attracting film premières from around the world.

It was an extremely challenging film to shoot. The logistics of getting someone that is disabled through all the rapids and around the other obsacles were quite complicated. Finding time and energy to film it was something else. Having the finished film out there and getting seen at major festivals makes it all worth while. There is no way it could have happened without the tremendous help of the others on the trip and the fantastic editing work of Heidi Douglas over at Dark Lake Productions.

Below is the films synopsis and a few pics.

The Ditch

“For eleven months of the year the Franklin is nothing more than a brown ditch,

leech ridden, unattractive to the majority of people.

You’ve got to be superbly fit or mentally ill to go rafting down there…..”

Robin Gray, Former Premier of Tasmania.

“The Ditch” follows Paul Pritchard who has an acquired brain injury from a climbing accident and a group of friends as they raft the Franklin River on the remote west coast of Tasmania. Paul has hemiplegia, a condition that has robbed him of feeling and movement in his right side. But as this film will show it hasn’t rob him of his spirit of adventure. Not even the leeches can take that.

Paul Pritchard on the Franklin River

Thunderush rapid in flood on the Franklin River

One of my images has made the final of the National Photographic Portrait Prize.

I am pretty happy about this as you never quite know what will happen when you enter a prize, so it is great when you get a good result.

Below is another image from the same  shoot that made the final of the Olive Cotton Award for Photographic Portraiture. It is from a place called Big Dog Island in Bass Strait between Mainland Australia and Tasmania. It is a place where Tasmanian Aboriginals have been comming for hundreds of years to harvest Mutton birds, also known as Moonbirds. It is a time for the Aboriginal community to come together and connect with country.

This is my first post on this blog.

It will be the home for recent work, images and news about what I’ve been up to. 

I have just spent a fantastic week kayaking the Franklin River, It is a trip I try to do at least once a year. For me the Franklin is one of the great river journey’s in the world and one of the great gifts of Tasmania. It is great to know places like it still exists in this ever shrinking world.

Below is some background on the river for those that aren’t familiar with it and a few of images. 

The Franklin River cuts a path through the middle of Tasmania’s World Heritage Area, one of Australia’s largest conservation reserves, consisting of 1.38 million hectares, approximately 20% of the whole island of Tasmania.

The landscape is grand, on it’s 130km course to the ocean the river circles Frenchman’s Cap a quartzite monolith towering 1400 meters, that often holds snow year round. The Franklin then gives its water to the Gordon River, for which it is the major tributary. These two rivers combine to carry more water to the ocean than any other in the country. An expedition along the corridor of the Franklin River takes most parties at least ten days to complete.

The Lower Franklin River

Portaging the upper section of the Churn Rapid in the Great Ravine of the Franklin River

Marcus Morse paddles the lower waterfall on the Churn Rapid in the Franklin Rivers Great Ravine.