Jose Gomez – Australasia’s Top Emerging Photographers 2022 – Featured portfolio
Photographer: Jose Gomez
Title: Migrants
Category: Portrait
Instagram: instagram.com/jose.gomez.photography
Website: jose-gomez-photography.com.au
About the entry
Migration is always a heated topic, with supporters and opponents from every side of the political spectrum as well as from people from all walks of life. Supporters of migration advocate the increased economic productivity brought about by migrants, while opponents point out that migrants are bad for social cohesion based on ill-founded fears, that migrants want to take over and destroy the Australian way of life and culture.
It is my opinion that the rhetoric from both sides is one-dimensional, and both sides fail to see migrants simply as human beings, with feelings, desires, goals, hobbies, just like any other Australian. From my own experience, since I arrived in Australia 17 years ago as a skilled migrant, I have not experienced any overt racism, and have been accepted in all of my places of work. However, I still feel that making friendships with locals is almost an impossible task, whereas with other migrants it all just seems to flow and happen organically.
In this project I want to create portraits of migrants and their families, to present them as the humans they are, with passions, hobbies, and jobs, just like everyone else from anywhere in the world. These migrants are people from my work, local community, or family members.
Australasia's Top Emerging Photographers, presented by Fujifilm, is the region's main platform for discovering and showcasing photographers at the outset of their careers, as well as aspiring photographers. The competition is open to emerging, student, and amateur photographers. The prize pool currently stands at over $30,000, including $9,000 in cash.The best entries will be showcased in the May–July 2022 issue of Capture magazine.
Early-bird pricing ends after Sunday, 5 December, 11:59pm (AEDT).