Head On Festival -Landscape Photography Awards

Harald Helle awarded Runner Up in Head On photo awards 2025

First of all, I would like to thank David for celebrating large format photography through the View Camera Australia website. It’s a great resource for anyone who appreciates the bigger negatives in life.

I’m an amateur photographer who grew up with film, spent 10 years using only digital cameras and then in 2014 decided to dust off my old 35mm SLR. That turned out to be a slippery slope, before I knew it I was using medium format cameras and after a workshop at the Australian Centre for Photography I was all in on large format photography.

Using a large format camera is very meditative and allows me to spend time outdoors capturing details I otherwise would have missed. I don’t have a website, I’m not on social media and I don’t really engage much with other photographers. However, on Friday I was awarded the Runner Up in the Landscape category at this year’s Head On Photo Festival in Sydney with my image titled “Central Coast LGA#04″. The image is a triptych of the Hawkesbury River made up of three 4×5 FP4+ negatives, developed in caffenol, scanned at home and then combined to create a panoramic image. 

The image is part of a project where I use my view camera to explore lesser-known parts of the Central Coast of NSW and it started back in Covid times when we were only allowed to travel within our own Local Government Area. Over the years I’ve been continually surprised at how many hidden treasures we have at our doorstep.

Head On has been running an amazingly successful festival for more than 20 years and it’s a true celebration of photography. The 40 Head On Landscape finalists are displayed on the Bondi Beach Promenade in Sydney until 30 November (Portrait finalists in the Bondi Pavilion and Exposure finalists at the Paddington Reservoir Gardens). There are also 40 featured exhibitions as part of this year’s Head On Photo Festival and I strongly encourage anyone who’s in Sydney this month to visit Bondi Beach and the Paddington Reservoir Gardens to enjoy top quality photography from all over the world.