Year
2008
Category
Young Journalist of the Year Awards
Photography
Andrew Quilty (@andrewquilty) won the 2008 Walkley Young Australian of the Year Photography Prize for his “Untitled Utopia” series.
After being given a Nikon F3 by his uncle and setting off on Highway 1 around Australia in 2001 Andrew Quilty’s career in photography had essentially begun. He enrolled in Photography at The Sydney Institute of TAFE soon after and subsequently undertook work experience at The Australian Financial Review (AFR). There at Fairfax (publisher of The AFR), surrounded by the world class photographers of The Sydney Morning Herald, Quilty’s photographic style and ethos were profoundly shaped.
After leaving TAFE at the top of his class in 2004, Quilty was soon employed by The AFR. But it was the work he did in his own time that began to attract the attention of the photographic community. His first big editorial break came when his vigorous black and white observations from The Cronulla Riots in December 2005 were published in TIME Magazine.
In 2006 he was promoted to the position of staff photographer for The AFR Magazine, where he honed his portraiture skills with subjects of power and influence and in the ensuing years was awarded a string of accolades. Most notably a World Press Photo Award in 2008, The Inaugural Walkley Young Australian Photojournalist of The Year Award and an invitation to join the prestigious Australian Photographic Collective Oculi.
With a growing reputation as one of Australia’s leading documentary practitioners, Quilty’s insight has been called upon numerous times to judge high profile photographic awards while his work has been collected by private and public institutions including The National Library of Australia and The Museum of Sydney.
He has been commissioned by The New York Times, TIME Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Le Monde, GEO, Bloomberg Businessweek, and many more, while recent written essays have been published in The Australian Financial Review, The Big Issue, The Walkley Magazine and Photofile.
Quilty recently made his first trip to the Middle East and Afghanistan where he’ll soon return on a more permanent basis.
Judges’ comments:
“Andrew has an inspiring ability to document daily life and his composition is brilliant, his work very emotive, drawing viewers in. His talent is mature beyond his age.”