Before this year’s Ballarat International Foto Biennale, I had never heard of British/Greek photographer Platon Antoniou. That has quickly changed with his exhibition People Power showing at the glorious Ballarat Art Gallery.
The 55 year old has had distinguished career that I’ve clearly ignored over the past 30 years! Despite my ignorance there were images that I did remember seeing given they are so iconic.
Amongst an amazing body of work, Platon has photographed over thirty covers for Time magazine including Vladimir Putin as Time Magazine’s Man of the Year in 2007.
The images from that session are shown here and Platon describes feeling Putin’s cold breath as he held the camera an inch from his nose. Ewww! And I thought Satan’s breath would be hot. That’s not the case.
There are other evil world leaders featured here such as Gaddafi, Chavez and Trump, all of whom he has captured in their natural states of ‘shiftiness’.
But it wasn’t all portraits of famous politicians, agents of change, musicians and actors. A significant amount of the exhibition is devoted to human rights, something that Platon is obviously passionate about.
According to the festival guide, in 2013 Platon founded the not-for-profit organisation The People’s Portfolio to document humanitarian efforts around the world. His portfolios include photographs of Burmese victims and exiles, Egyptian revolutionaries and those fighting against oppression in Russia.
These images are powerful and thought provoking. Another reminder as to how lucky we are to live in this country with so many safety nets to fall back on.
Here are some shots from the exhibition but they don’t do any justice to the real thing. The Biennale has just started and runs right through to October.
I agree and urge everyone to make the journey to Ballarat this year and see some more examples of art photography on display. We are lucky to now be residents and can take our time, but we have also done the trip as a weekend away. Highly recommend.