Queensland bush a favourite with photographers

A highly-processed image of Normanton's historic railway station won Emerald's Cherie Ryan the People's Choice award in the Canon Collective creative section of the Museum of Tropical Queensland competition.

Exploring the environment has been the aim of the Museum of Tropical Queensland’s photography competitions, and it was achieved in spades in 2015 when over 120 people from all over the state and interstate submitted 370 spectacular entries representing the essence of Queensland.

The winners were announced at the end of January at the opening of a display at the Townsville museum showcasing the winning photographs.

Queensland Museum Network CEO and Director, Professor Suzanne Miller said the competition had captured the imaginations of people who live in, and have visited, special places across the state, “from remote bush properties near Birdsville to iconic cityscapes in Brisbane, from the gulf town of Kurumba to the beach lifestyle of Currumbin.”

Dylan O'Kane's favourite place is "Karumba Sunset". The Year 7 Cairns student won the secondary category encouragement award.

The inaugural competition had a Backyard Safari theme, which brought out some beautiful macro photography, but this year it was My Favourite Place in Queensland.

Spokeswoman Lorelle Schluter said many more nature shots had been submitted than photographs of the built environment.

“People definitely like being outdoors,” she said. “We wanted them to think about what their favourite place was, and then why it was, and encourage them to look after it.”

Thanks to support from schools of Distance Education, the competition had reached a whole new audience this year, according to Ms Schluter.

Harriet Hacon, from Grenada, Cloncurry won the secondary category with an action photo called "Bush Rodeo"

The expanded competition, with five categories, included the new Canon Collective creative award to give photographers of all ages the opportunity to use post-processing technology to digitally enhance their photographs.

The other new category this year was the People’s Choice awards which attracted over 300 votes from Museum visitors during the summer school holidays.

While the competition differs from many others in allowing the copyright to remain with the photographer, Ms Schluter said there had been much enquiry about purchasing prints of the photographs on display and it was something they may explore in future.

“We’ll be using the photographs to promote our next competition, starting again in August,” she said.

Daniel Goddard won the Primary category with this striking sunset image from his home at Deelamon, Mitchell.

The winning and finalist entries will be on display at the museum until February 28, and can be viewed on the Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/museumoftropicalqueensland

Through the support of councils, locals from Charters Towers and Hinchinbrook receive free entry to the museum and locals from Townsville and the Burdekin receive half-price entry.

Winners and finalists:

Open Category

· Winner – Simone Vinton, Edge Hill

· People’s Choice Award – Jenny Reid, Morney Plains, Windorah and Kiri Turk, Mount Louisa