Winning portrait of a family grieving
A POIGNANT photo of a father holding his deceased child has won photographer Gil Meydan a major prize.
PHOTOGRAPHER Gil Meydan’s job at a major hospital means that he often takes photos of families who have suffered a loss as part of the hospital’s bereavement service.
A photo of a father holding his deceased child has won Meydan a share of the $50,000 Head On Portrait Prize, announced last week by Federal Arts Minister Peter Garrett at a function in Sydney.
Meydan, 42, who has been the medical photographer at the Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne for the past four years, said the service is important for families who have suffered grief.
“Many parents who lose children want a photo to create a memory and to help deal with the situation,” he said.
“It can be tough and affects me to a degree — sometimes I have to brace myself, but it’s very ¬≠rewarding.
“It affects thousands of people each year. It is really pleasing when parents write and thank me for taking the photo.”
Meydan, who was born in Israel and grew up in Melbourne attending Mount Scopus Memorial College for secondary school, studied photography at RMIT and worked as a freelance portrait and commercial photographer for many years. He then began work as a medical photographer with the Royal Children’s Hospital and then the Royal Women’s Hospital.
The Head On Portrait Photography Prize was established in 2004 by Moshe Rosenzveig, a Bondi commercial photographer who has worked in the visual arts for more than 30 years. It has become a major independent national competition due to the selection criteria, where quality and impact of the image is more important than the celebrity of the photographer or subject.
This year’s competition received more than 2300 entries, with three photographers selected from 40 finalists sharing the first prize — Meydan, Fiona Wolf and Karl Schwerdtfeger. Each winner will receive about $15,000 worth of photographic equipment.
Rosenzveig said that Meydan’s entry, titled Noah, impressed the judges, who thought the tough situation was handled with great sensitivity and that it was one of the most powerful pictures submitted to the competition.
However, one judge was uncomfortable with the choice due to the subject matter.
Mayden admitted that his “work includes the challenge and privilege of photographing some of the babies that don’t survive the journey into our world”.
“This moment moves me because of how tenderly Noah’s father holds him … and both the pride and pain that I see in his gaze.”
Mayden said that one reason he entered the competition was to help promote the work of medical photographers at hospitals such as the Royal Women’s Hospital.
This year, entries from 300 Australian and international photographers in the Head On competition are featured in the inaugural Head On Photo Festival, being held at 68 galleries around Sydney until June 5. The festival’s hub is the Australian Centre for Photography in Paddington.
Enquiries: www.headon.com.au.
DANNY GOCS
PHOTO: Photographer Gil Meydan. Photo: Annaliese Comelab
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