Gomma Photography Grant 2024
Collected memories
Photographer
Mark Forbes
Collected memories
19 Jan, 2025
«Collected memories The more we see imagery of people, places and spaces, the more our individual memories are shaped by the photographs that we choose to hold onto. As time passes and details fade, these photographs become our memories. As a result when an image is made, explicitly or subconsciously, decisions are being made about how things will be remembered. While these images are my collected memories, they are here to be shared and possibly become yours too. The series has evolved over the last 5 years and has coincided with a focus on mindfulness and meditation in my life. All images were photographed on medium format film. "
About the photographer
Mark Forbes
"Mark Forbes is best known for his considered and atmospheric documentary photography of street scenes, urban landscapes and structures. He employs film as his medium of choice for personal documentary work - using predominantly traditional medium format cameras. Forbes' approach to photography comes from an underlying fascination with people and their interaction with the environment. He has an uncanny knack of bringing personality to the ordinary. "I am an avid people watcher. When I'm out in the street, or even just day to day, I'm constantly seeing beautiful and interesting images and stories in my head.” His photographs have been exhibited at solo and group exhibitions throughout Australia at both public and commercial galleries. He was the winner of The Gomma Grant 2019 (best colour photograph), the winner of the OptiKA Photographic Award 2020, the runner up in the 2021 Head On Portrait Award, 2nd place in the IPA Professional 2022 awards in the Analog Fine Art category and has been a finalist in many renowned Art Prizes including the Blake Prize, Olive Cotton Award, Percival Photographic Portrait Prize, Sunshine Coast Art Prize, Nillumbik Prize for Contemporary Art, CLIP Award, Lake Art Prize, Footscray Art Prize, Mullins Conceptual Photography Prize, Lethbridge Landscape Prize, Lethbridge Art Award, Wyndham Art Prize, Photo Lucida Critical Mass and the Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize (semi finalist). His portraiture has featured in multiple editions of the British Journal of Photography’s Portrait of Humanity monographs. His images also featured at Leica HQ in Wetzlar during the M6 launch event as part of their ‘Celebration of Photography’."
