Roger Pain’s winning photograph in the open section.
A photograph by Eden’s Aysha Kerr has earned the People’s Choice award for the Bega Valley Shire Council’s Australia Day competition.
Run on Facebook, Aysha’s photograph of banksia trees at Eden Sportsground was taken at sunset and generated 471 ‘likes’ at the time of voting.
The school leaver and former school captain is delighted to have won a mini-iPad as she prepares to go to university.
Nethercote’s Astrid Archer won the youth award for her image of a boy in the sand.
The open prize was won by Roger Pain (Merimbula) for his image of a family and dog jumping off a jetty.
Judge Megan Bottari, curator of Bega Valley Regional Gallery, said choosing the winners was “incredibly difficult”.
“But in the end the decision came down to defining the nature of the competition itself,” she said.
“It wasn’t really about picture postcard, archetypal representations of place.
“Australia Day is greater than the sum of all the nationalistic posturing.
“It’s a day given over to the celebration of culture and community – most particularly the latter.
“It’s a day – theoretically, at any rate - of welcome and inclusion.”
She said Mr Pain’s image did that.
“It speaks volumes of the calibre of lifestyle we seek and find on the Far South Coast.
“Far from the madding crowd, at one with the simple things in life.”
All category winners take home an Apple iPad Mini, and Mr Pain also receives a $100 voucher from Fletchers Fotographics in Bega.
