Enter the Australian Life photography competition 2024

All Australian residents and permanent citizens aged 13 and above can enter the Australian Life photography competition.

You don’t have to be a professional photographer. Amateur photographers are welcome.

Entry is free.

Entries closed on on Sunday 21 April 2024.

All works must be created with a camera (phone camera accepted).

All works must not use or include any synthetic or artificially generated images or elements (including generative fill in post-production).

All works must not have been created or developed, in whole or in part, using any generative artificial intelligence tools.

Any editing of entries should maintain the integrity of the original image’s content and context.

All works are required in landscape orientation to be exhibited horizontally.

Provide JPEG files no greater than 5MB.

Ensure your images are of sufficiently high quality and well-exposed, sharp and clear with good contrast for reproduction and printing. If you’re chosen as a finalist, we may require a higher resolution image.

Finalist images will be reproduced for the exhibition to the scale of around 3:2 ratio 1860mm high by 2800mm wide.

Finalists will be notified of any changes to final exhibition dimensions.

You may also share a print or transparency.

Entries won’t be cropped if they fulfil the ratio and size, compatible with the 35mm format.

If your work does require cropping, please supply the layout and cropping details with your entry.

Digital files for finalist images should be set at 75 DPI RGB TIFF or grayscale for black and white.

The image must have been captured between 11 March 2023 and 21 April 2024.

The Grand Prize Winner will be announced on 1 August.

The People’s Choice Award will be announced by 21 August.

Born in 1985, Sam Ferris hails from Melbourne and relocated to Sydney in 2008, where he started to photograph his daily life. He has since become one of Australia’s most awarded and celebrated emerging photographers.

Ferris’ work has been exhibited across the globe with his work selected for the recent Thames & Hudson title Reclaim the Street (2023), edited by Matt Stuart. Epic Revue and Leica Fotographie International magazines have featured major showcases of his work and Ferris was among 3 Australian photographers with images selected for 100 Great Street Photographs (2017) by Prestel Publishing and edited by David Gibson.

In 2023, Ferris’ image On the way to inspections was awarded City of Sydney’s $10,000 Australian Life photographic prize. He was also a prize winner at StreetFoto San Francisco (2017), Lens Culture Street Photography Awards (2021) and Trieste Photo Days Projects and Portfolios (2023). In 2019, he was named Australia’s Top Emerging Photographer in documentary/photojournalism by over 30 local and international judges.

Matt Horspool, professional photographer, director of photography and polar expedition guide, was born in South Korea and raised in rural NSW by adoptive parents. With a double degree in exercise science and secondary teaching, he now resides on the central coast with his partner and 2 young daughters.

As an OM SYSTEM and Shimoda Designs ambassador, Horspool ardently captures the world’s remote and diverse landscapes and cultures, employing various land, aerial and underwater photography techniques. His extensive travels and commercial portfolio span 48 countries across all continents, leading a rich global perspective to his work. He co-owns a production company collaborating with major brands and tourish brands to create compelling, narrative-driven content.

Chris Frape is a music documentary photographer with 35 years experiences. Based in the Illawarra, his focus includes live performances, press and magazine commissions, band promotions, portraits and behind scenes documentation of the lifestyles associated with the music scene. He has documented the first performances of Midnight Oil, the Sex Pistols, Crowded House, Shining Bird and Sharon Jones. If they’ve played in Australia, from backyard gigs to festivals and stadiums, he was probably there.

Frape’s work has appeared in 15 solo and group shows in local community and regional art galleries. His work has appeared on billboards, buses, posters, album covers and t-shirts. He’s a regular contributor to major news and music publications in Australia and internationally and the resident photographer at Sydney’s Basement Jazz Club, the Landsdowne Hotel in Chippendale and the University of Wollongong Uni Bar. In 2020, Frape won the Music category of the Monster Children Photographic Competition with a backstage image of the US musician and producer Thundercat at the Basement.

He has established a studio and gallery space in Bellambi, Wollongong where he hosts regular events, art shows and makes commercial and portrait work as well as pursuing his personal art practice.

Sandy Edwards is a photographer and curator of photography. In 2008 she founded Arthere, an organisation that mentors and produces exhibitions for photographic artists in Sydney and throughout Australia. Edwards has been curator and judge of Australian Life (previously Sydney life) since its inception in 2002.

For 26 years, she was a curator at Stills Gallery, Australia’s most established and prestigious photography gallery which closed in 2017. In this role and as an independent curator and creative producer of Arthere, she curated hundreds of photographic exhibitions in Sydney. She had an association with Head On Photo Festival, Australia’s premier photography festival and curated the Kings Cross Photography Competition and Prize in 2011 and 2012. In 2000, she curated Photographic Light boxes with Linda Slutzkin for the Arrivals Corridors Sydney Airport art program.