Head On Photo Festival 2013

Overview

It’s always a huge year at Head On Photo Festival, and this year is no exception. Too big to fit in a single month, Head On sprawls over May and June, watching both the Sydney Writers Festival and the Sydney Film Festival open and close in its wake.

This year’s selection of photography spends a lot of time overseas, with Calle Habana’s black and white Cuba, Ambition, Resignation, Alienation’s stolen light from '80s China, White Shadows’ window on life as an albino in Tanzania (also explored in the Human Rights Arts and Film Fest this year) and Yakuza’s journey into the Japanese underworld. There’s also Paul Blackmore’s stills from Beruit, and Stills Gallery’s photography from the late war correspondent Tim Hetherington.

Closer to home, George Voulgaropoulos makes takes some stunning refugee portraits in Auburn, Fiona Wolf checks out the Parkes Elvis Festival, Jagath Dheerasekara checks out the Campbelltown fringe and indigenous retrospective from Barbara McGrady. There’s also a few words from Magnum photographers at the State Library and the Powerhouse.

And these are just a toe in the water out of a flood of inbound photo shows coming our way all around town, including Andrew Quilty, the hidden Emma Hack, a look at the Ghanian way of death and many, many more.

Image: Tim Hetherington, Kim, Korengal Valley, Kunar Province, Afghanistan © Tim Hetherington, courtesy Yossi Milo Gallery, New York. Part of Stills Gallery's Head On Show.