Sydney’s celebration of photography, the Head On Photo Festival, returns from 7–30 November, transforming Bondi Beach Promenade, Bondi Pavilion and Paddington Reservoir Gardens into a vivid showcase of visual storytelling from across the globe.
Now in its 16th year, the festival continues to challenge, move and inspire through images that explore beauty, conflict and connection. The program is set to feature bold new works, global premieres and exhibitions that remind us how powerfully photography can capture truth and question it.
Main image: © Xianhui Fang, courtesy of Head On Photo Festival
The festival opens with the announcement of the Head On Photo Awards winners, who will share in an $80,000 prize pool, along with a new $5,000 Mayor of Waverley’s Prize recognising excellence in a single exhibition. Across its Portrait, Landscape and Exposure categories, the Awards bring together more than 100 remarkable images that reflect humanity in all its forms.
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Among the program’s most anticipated moments is the Southern Hemisphere premiere of The Stringer, a provocative documentary re-examining the legacy of the Vietnam War’s ‘Napalm Girl’ photograph and the ethical boundaries of photojournalism. Equally powerful is Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Robinson Chávez’s Imperium, a haunting yet compassionate visual account of life and endurance in war-torn Ukraine.
- Bottom left: Image: © Cameron Spencer, courtesy of Head On Photo Festival
- Bottom right: Image: © Niccolò Rastrelli, courtesy of Head On Photo Festival
Dutch photographer Marjolein Busstra’s House of Hope takes a quieter, but no less affecting, approach, following a Palestinian family in East Jerusalem who built the region’s only Steiner school, creating a space for peace and possibility in the midst of tension.
Closer to home, the Walkley Foundation celebrates its 70th anniversary with a retrospective of sports photography from 1998 to 2024, capturing the triumphs, heartbreak and emotion that define Australian sport.
For a lighter touch, the Bondi Beach Promenade will feature works that explore the everyday with imagination and warmth, from Niccolò Rastrelli’s Cosplay Families, celebrating intergenerational creativity through costume and play, to Xianhui Fang’s People in Deep Mountains, a tender portrayal of rural life in China’s Taihang Mountains.
The Bondi Pavilion will also host a packed events program, including Sydney’s only Photobook & Zine Market, artist talks, and reflections from William Yang, one of Australia’s most celebrated photographers, as he revisits five decades of storytelling and cultural history.
Head On Photo Festival 2025 runs from 7 to 30 November. Explore the full program and tickets here.