Hillvale Photo Trophy 2026- Hillvale Gallery
Hillvale’s Photo Trophy is one of the great equalizing opportunities for artists, in this case photographers, that exist in Melbourne. Bec covered it last year, and in our good tradition of swapping coverage on prizes, I’ve taken it on for its 4th edition. My favourite work, for reasons that also resulted in me dragging my whole family to Roswell, New Mexico, was Nora Merralls’ (0538) alien, standing out against a bubblegum carnival ride background. It’s the type of image I’m endlessly collecting vintage postcards in the hope of finding.
That thread - the proto-vintage charm that permeated so many of these images – was one I kept finding on wall after wall. Kitsch taking the form of items, roadtrips, weird sculptures - all carefully displayed in 8” x 12” - ran rampant and I couldn’t love it more. It is glimpsed in all corners: Rose Williams’ (0977) tourist tea towel thrown over a sink of dishes; Adam Paterson’s (0684) head-on shot of a kangaroo statue totally unnerved me, forcing me to look away; Kalindy Williams (0971) brought me back to collecting my own ultra feminine tchotchkes; Wilhelm Philipp (0704), captures our local kitsch icon, the carrot man, in all his oversize vegetable glory.
Philipp’s work also veers into the other consistently strong genre of the Trophy: the portrait. Florent Goy’s (0341) sleeping train passenger captures a truly unguarded moment, the blue of the man’s shirt brighter than anything else in the image, letting you almost glimpse his chest rising and falling as he sleeps away the hours to his final destination. Ash Giblin's (0320) clown, dressed all in red, refusing us eye contact runs to the other spectrum of portraiture. Totally contrived, the image still captures a universal truth of a willingness to be seen not amounting to a wanting to be known. A near identical expression can be found in Peter Sherlock’s (0806) work: same stars, same refusal of eye contact, completely different feeling conveyed in the image. Leila Edelstein’s (0247) portrait is odd and better for it. Holding your head in your hands is common, having your head held by someone else, less so. It’s an image that loses none of its coy warmth for being black and white. Finally, barely a portrait so much as an image of bodies, Young Ha Kim (0371) gives us an image for the ages. Whatever has led to this moment - sex, a fight, a dance, a performance – is immaterial. Kim gives us the exhausted aftermath, the letdown, the coming back into your body after an experience so wholly physical you can’t help but leave it for a split second.
Sonny Witton (0983) is somewhere above portraiture. The image breathes. The pigeons fly off the paper. The scream echoes the gallery. Truly it’s a great image: funny and perfectly composed, a winning combination.
The gig images are plentiful and strong: Asher Paris (0679), Milos Markicevic (0548), and Asuka Chen (0142) capture Melbourne pub gigs and venues in all of their grimy, dimly lit glory. That rapturous feeling of live music is embodied in Meg Houghton’s (0426) snap. In each of them, I can feel the drums vibrating my skull and can’t hear a damn thing said to me all at the same time. The sheer number of cat and cow photos surprised and delighted me. The travel photos are what 2013 tumblr dreams are made of: Anna Chen (0140) captures the secluded cabin of Wes Andersonian dreams .
To the anonymous creator of image 0467: I hated it, and in fact, I am mad at you.
It’s not an exhibition without flaw - frankly, an entire wall in the back room fell flat for me, throwing me off. Surveying the entire Trophy, of course some images are ones that you get in any prize, submitted for the sake of it. Others could be great if the framing/lighting/proportions had been slightly better considered, or they’re technically good but emotionally vacant. The show is hundreds of images, not every one can be good, but the great vastly outweighs the mediocre. Hillvale is a cornerstone of photography in Melbourne. Whether you’re searching for film, a photobooth, developing the 6 rolls you’ve had stashed in a drawer, or in the case of their gallery, getting a real sense of what photographers are up to. It’s never a wasted visit. The Trophy plays an important role in this. There are few truly egalitarian showcases like it, and it’s a major fundraising event for their gallery space. Go on and see it, and maybe buy a print while you’re at it.
The 4th Annual Hillvale Photo Trophy runs until 22 November.