By JESSE GRAHAM
A WARBURTON artist with more than two decades in photography has been rewarded by being selected as one of the winners of the My Place, My Community photo competition.
Paul Colcheedas was chosen as the winner of the Judge’s Choice Award for his photograph of three children with candles at a winter solstice event this year.
“It happened to be the right place at the right time – they were so engrossed in what they were doing,” he said.
“I feel quite pleased to get that.”
The competition, which is run by the Upper Yarra Community Enterprise (UYCEL), gathered people from the Upper Yarra area and invited them to submit their photographic work.
The aim of the competition was to showcase the beauty and presence of the local region through the lens of a local resident.
Each entrant could submit two photographs, and there were about 40 people entered in the competition, with 67 photographs altogether.
Works were judged by David Roberts and Vlad Bunyevich who are both experts in photography and cinematography, for the Judges’ Choice section of the competition, and residents were invited to vote for a People’s Choice award online.
UYCEL communications officer Lindy Schneider said that more than 500 people placed votes in person or online and that the top 12 photographs will be used for the UYCEL’s 2014 calendar.
“There were a good selection of special places around the valley and also some special people,” she said.
Mr Colcheedas, who runs a graphic design, fine art print and photo business in Warburton, said he’s glad the competition is run in the Upper Yarra area.
“It’s the only one I know of out this way, so it’s a really good medium to get the local artists to display their photography,” he said.
The calendars with winning photographs in them will be created later in the year and sold through branches of the Yarra Junction and Warburton Community Banks, which make up the UYCEL, from November.
This is the second year the competition has been run.
