This week Friday Round Up focuses on the 6th edition of Sydney’s Head On Photo Festival, which is Australia’s largest photographic event. Head On opens next Friday 1st May. Today's preview features some of the international shows included in the Featured program. Next week it’s the Aussies turn.
Feature:
Head On Photo Festival
John Malkovich as Andy Warhol from Sandro Miller's exhibition
Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich: Homage to Photography Masters
exclusive to Head On Photo Festival
The Head On Festival Hub
The biggest innovation this year is the introduction of the Head On Festival Hub, a central location in the heart of Sydney where photographers can mingle, and everyone can participate in exhibitions, screenings, talks and workshops over the first ten days of the festival. This is a fantastic idea and will make it much easier for visitors to see a host of diverse exhibitions in the one venue. I'm looking forward to checking it out, along with other exhibitions I've earmarked as must sees - check out my selection below.
Festival Director Moshe Rosenzveig says, “The Hub is where you can drop in, talk about photography, and see photography. It provides the opportunity to have a social interaction with a whole lot of people”.
Located in Sydney Lower Town Hall the Hub will host nine of the Featured Exhibitions for the festival as well as screenings, artist talks, and workshops. Talks will be held during the day at lunchtimes to encourage city workers to drop in. Screenings will run constantly throughout the day.
The Hub is also the venue for the opening of the Festival on 1st May where the winners of the Head On Photo Awards, which are the flagship of the Festival, will be announced next Friday. This year there are five categories - the coveted Head On Portrait Prize plus Landscape, Moving Image, Mobile, and the new category for 2015, Student.
There’s also a program of talks, workshops and masterclasses including:
Italian photographer Alessandro Penso masterclass - Using Photography for Social Change: From Concept to Completion – click here for details
Ben Lowy, Marvi Lacar and Michael Robinson Chavez – Creating and Packaging Your Visual Story – click here for details
Sandro Miller (Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich) will present on how to shoot portraiture - click link for details
Panel discussion at the Hub on Sunday 3 May 4.30-6.30pm – Staying Relevant as a Photography Professional. Panelists are Jim Dooley, from Alexia Foundation, photographers Sandro Miller, Matt Willis, Alessandro Penso, Daniel Schuman, portfolio expert Sally Brownbill and Alison Stieven-Taylor.
The International Exhibitions - My Pick
Between Heaven and Earth - Shunzan Fan 
Chinese photographer Shunzan Fan seeks to capture the importance of the dreamscape. In this series Between Heaven and Earth he features staged pictures of everyday people who pose in front of 'their dream'. Shot in black and white and then manually coloured, these images cross cultural boundaries to show that all of us have hopes and dreams no matter our circumstance or nationality.
Until 16 May
Stanley Street Gallery
1/52-54 Stanley St
Darlinghurst
Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich: Homage to Photographic Masters - Sandro Miller 
Diane Arbus Twins
American photographer Sandro Miller has created an amazing collections of photographs paying homage to some of the great photographers of the past century. Enlisting the help of his friend, actor John Malkovich, Miller has painstakingly recreated iconic images such as Marilyn Monroe, Andy Warhol, John Lennon and Meryl Streep. This is an extraordinary collection. Don't miss it.
Richard Avedon Beekeeper
Dorothea Lange Migrant Mother
Annie Liebovitz John and Yoko
Annie Liebovitz Meryl Streep
Herb Ritts Jack Nicholson
Bert Stern Marilyn Roses
28 April to 17 May
Black Eye Gallery
3/138 Darlinghurst Rd
Darlinghurst
You can read my interview with Sandro Miller in today's Australian Financial Review
Iraq Perspectives Windows - Benjamin Lowy 
Shot between 2003 and 2008 through the window of a Humvee in Iraq, Lowy's images capture fragments of daily life giving an insight into a world where war and violence is not the only story.
1- 17 May
aMBUSH Gallery
Level 3, Central Park,
28 Broadway,
Chippendale
1in20 - curated by Marvi Lacar 
1in20 is a project US photographer Marvi Lacar began last year with her husband photojournalist Ben Lowy; a mental health initiative born of her own journey with acute clinical depression.
1in20 is aimed at educating and destigmatising mental illness through creative storytelling and the exhibition consist of a series of Instagram posts, complete with captions and reader comments. Contributions are from those who have dealt with the gamut of human experiences from depression and suicide to sexual abuse, PTSD and the loss of a child. Adding an interactive element, visitors to the exhibition are invited to add their own comments to the prints.
Cara Anna
Echosight
Erin Mencher
Maurice Decaul
Kerry Payne
1-10 May
Sydney Lower Town Hall
Head On Festival Hub
483 George Street
Sydney
The Driest Seasons: California's Dust Bowl
- Michael Robinson Chavez
California is in the grip of crippling drought. In the Central Valley, which is home to an agriculture industry worth billions towns have run out of water and farms have been abandoned as fields lay parched. Chavez’ series, shot over 12 months, examines the effect that this historic drought is having on the people who work the fields and run the farms.
Until 31 May
Customs House (level 2)
31 Alfred St
Circular Quay
In Brief:
Alessandro Penso - Lost Generation at Istituto Italiano di Cultura
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Naoto Ijichi
Tokyo Gardens
at The Japan Foundation Gallery
Sebastian Liste - The New Culture of Violence in Latin America presented by the Alexia Foundation at The Hub
VII Photo – Smile
at The Hub
(C) Alexandra Boulat
(C) Ashley Gilbertson
(C) Franco Pagetti
(C) Gary Knight
Jonathan May - Desert Ink
at GAFFA
Gohaf Dashti – Iran
at ACP
Head On Featured Exhibitions - to find our more see the website here
Head On Photo Festival
1-31 May
Sydney - various venues
