Australian Life photography competition

Matthew Abbott is an Australian storyteller and photojournalist. He specialises in identifying, researching and executing in-depth long-form visual stories. He believes storytelling is most effective and powerful when it is based on a close connection to the subjects and an understanding of the stories behind the lens.

Abbott has reported from across the globe, but in recent years has focused his attention on what he knows best: his homeland Australia and neighbouring countries. He regularly contributes to the New York Times, Washington Post, and National Geographic. His images have become internationally iconic for sensitively depicting major issues of our time. Abbott is reporting from the front lines of the climate crisis and uses his critical eye to document social issues in a way that humanises and broadens our understanding of stories that matter.

Abbott has won some of the most prestigious domestic and international photojournalism awards: 3 World Press Awards, including Global Story of the Year 2022, and 4 Walkley Awards. Abbott was the inaugural Oceania-representative for the World Press Photo Global Talent Program. In 2020, he was named the Nikon-Walkley Press Photographer of the Year.

His prints have appeared in exhibitions and collections around the world, including in Paris, New York, Berlin, and Daegu. In 2021, Abbott's first book, A Fire Inside, about the catastrophic Black Summer bushfires in Australia was published by Thames & Hudson, going on to become a best seller and award-winning.

Travis De Vries is the founding director of Awesome Black and an avid artist.

De Vries’ practice has taken him from performing on stage with Bangarra Dance theatre across Australia, New York and Mongolia, to creating bespoke community programs for Indigenous performers through the Sydney Opera House. As well, he has performed his own live storytelling work at the Scottish International Storytelling Festival.

De Vries is an award-winning visual artist who has held solo exhibitions in Edinburgh, Sydney and regional New South Wales. He has also been part of numerous group exhibitions, art prizes and residencies. He creates unique, narrative-led large-scale exhibitions combining multiple forms, including paintings, drawings, projections, and experiential sculptures. These works focus on recreating and evolving Indigenous and Western mythologies for a modern era.

Storytelling is at the heart of his practice. Using fable, metaphor, symbolism and storytelling tropes, he invokes a deep connection with audiences to explore a range of both personal and universal themes. These themes include Indigeneity, violence, destruction, politics, love, death and relationships. All of this comes together to create an experiential style of work that is both unique and familiar.

Liz Ham has been working professionally as a photographer for more than 20 years.

Straddling the genres of social documentary, portraiture and fashion, her work is infused with nostalgia and narrative, often exploring ideas around identity and subculture. In 2017 Ham's first monograph Punk Girls was released internationally by Manuscript Publishing.

Ham as been selected as a finalist in the National Photographic Portrait Prize, Fishers Ghost Art Award, Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize and Head On Portrait Prize. Her work has been exhibited and acquired by institutions such as the Australian Centre for Photography Sydney, the State Library of Victoria, Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney and the State Library of New South Wales.

Ham currently divides her time between working on her personal practice, shooting commercially, lecturing and tutoring at the University of Technology Sydney, and presenting keynote lectures for selective events such as Semi Permanent.

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.

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 has curated hundred of photographic exhibitions in Sydney.

She has been curator and judge of Australian Life (previously Sydney Life) since its inception in 2002.

Edwards had an association with Head On Photo Festival, Australia's premier photography festival. She 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.

As a photographer she specialised in portraiture, education, women's issues and human rights. Her work is held in state and national collections. Exhibitions include Paradise is a Place, also a book published by Random House, and Welcome to Brewarrina.