SCOTT MORRISON

OWNER / PUBLISHER

DUOM agazine

As Townsville’s story-telling monthly, DUOMagazine also aims to tell stories with pictures.

At what point does a photo of a person become a photographic portrait? The photo on your passport or drivers licence is a visual representation of you, for identification purposes, which only shows your (unsmiling) facial features. It lasts for years and, like a time capsule, captures a moment in your life and unintentionally reveals some of your personality and the ‘face’ you project to the world. It shows your exterior. Your taste in clothes, your distinguishing features, your hairstyle (tucked behind your ears if you have long hair), your piercings and your tattoos.

The aim for the photographer is for the shot to be in focus so you are easily identified by the viewer. There is no deeper motivation. There’s no intention to reveal anything behind the external image.

Revealing what lies behind the external image, to me, is the meaning of a photographic portrait and what we ask our photographers to aim for in DUOMagazine.

What about selfies? Not a selfie in front of a tourist attraction. The one taken in front of the bathroom mirror. In a sense I think these are photographic portraits. We ran the 12 Faces of DUO cover model competition for a number of years and invited local women who would like to appear on a cover of DUOMagazine to send in a photograph of themselves for consideration.

A number of the photos we received were bathroom mirror selfies with the person striking a ‘model’ pose while holding their mobile phone. To me, they were aiming to show how photogenic they were and for us to imagine them on our cover. That they presented an image of themselves as a model was, to me, an expression of how they saw themselves and in itself not just a selfie but a self portrait. I would always be happy to publish a self portrait that told the story. I don’t know if there are any self portraits in the exhibition (or even a selfie) but, considering technology and the interests of younger generations maybe we will see more in future competitions.

I’m delighted that the DUO Magazine Percival

Photographic Portrait Prize can help promote portrait photography in all it’s forms.

Roderick McNICOL

The Late Blossoming of Jack Charles

Archival digital print

80 x 65 cm

Acquisitive Prize Winner of the DUO Magazine Percival

Photographic Portrait Prize, 2014.

Collection of DUOMagazine