JUSTIN MCMANUS
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Walkley Awards News photography Justin McManus won the award for news photography at the 2009 Walkley Awards for his photo “Black Saturday Body”. The judges said: "Monochromatic but in colour, this photograph is an example of how a picture of one victim can tell the story of 173 victims. It represents the loneliness of those who died. A photograph to stop you in your tracks." November 2009 |
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The day after the Black Saturday bushfires, as towns affected by the fires were roadblocked, Justin McManus found a lift with a local and reached the township of Narbethong. There he took this picture of a body near the side of the road. It’s a stark, simple and heartbreaking image. At first glance, the lone body laid in a smouldering burnt landscape could have been shot in black and white; the blue sky breaking through the blackened trees is the only colour. McManus lets this covered corpse speak for all the death, destruction and grief of the fires. Justin McManus has been a photojournalist since 1996 when he worked for Adelaide’s Messenger Newspapers. As a social documentary photographer, his work has been published in the UK’s The Guardian, The Times and The Independent and at Argentina’s Buenos Aires Herald. McManus has worked for The Age since returning to Australia in 2006, where he has won awards from the Quills, the Australian Institute of Professional Photography (AIPP), Pacific Area Newspaper Publishers Association (PANPA), and now a Walkley.
Photo by Justin McManus |
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