A couple of weeks ago I found myself standing at Balter Brewery, waiting to hear the results of the Gold Coast Photography Awards. I walked away runner up, for The Upside Down, one of the shots from my Life's a Beach series. It was also picked out separately as one of the major sponsor's favourite images of the night, which honestly caught me off guard more than the placing did.
The story behind The Upside Down
I'm not sure why but I couldn't help but laugh watching this unfold. I heard some yelling, turned around, and there's a guy sprinting after his umbrella as the wind rips it away from him down the sand at Kirra. No posing, no direction, just a completely unplanned moment that happened to land in the frame. That's the whole appeal of the Life's a Beach series for me, it's not about the perfect postcard shot, it's about the real, slightly chaotic, very Australian moments that actually happen on our beaches.
It's a strange feeling having a judging panel and a major sponsor single out a photo I almost didn't keep. It's a reminder that the shots worth taking aren't always the ones you plan for.
A night for the local creative community
What stuck with me more than the result was the room itself. Balter Brewery opened its doors for the night, and it was genuinely great seeing so much of the Gold Coast's creative community in one place, photographers, sponsors, judges, everyone who puts real time into this industry showing up to back each other. Events like this don't happen without a lot of people caring enough to organise them, and it says a lot about the Gold Coast that a night like this exists at all.
Photography can be a pretty solitary pursuit most of the time, you're usually on your own at 5am waiting for the light. So it means something to stand in a room full of people who get exactly what that's like, and to see a local brewery back the creative industry the way Balter did for this event.
Thank you to the organisers, judges and sponsors of the Gold Coast Photography Awards, and to everyone who came down to Balter to make the night what it was. If you want to see the shot that started all this, The Upside Down is here, or browse the rest of the Life's A Beach collection.
