Photos: Dougal Gorman

Best night everrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

If you weren’t in Danks street Waterloo last night, you were nowhere, maaaaaan. We had our annual Photo Annual launch (issue 71, on sale HERE) at our new offices in Waterloo and we announced the winners of the 2022 Photo Competition—aaaand we had an exhibition featuring the photographic work of all the winners and runners-up. We also had booze. Lots of booze. Probably too much, if we’re honest. But it was an amazing night, and we even had some finalists come through to claim their big novelty cheques, which was cool given the finalists hailed from all corners of the globe.

Shout-out to Surf category runner-up Josh Tabone, who caught the train all the way in from Port Macquarie to shake babies and kiss hands last night, and also the Surf Category winner, Rambo Estrada, who came all the way from Mt Maunganui on the North Island of New Zealand! Great to meet you guys and congrats on being really good photographers. The knucklehead who did the announcements was supposed to throw to Rambo for a victory speech, but the knucklehead didn’t because he’s a knucklehead. Here’s what Rambo would have said:

I’ve been entering this photo competition every year for over a decade, but have never made final before. And each time I always say fuck these fuckers and their motherfucking photo competition, I’m never entering this thing again (pause for laughter). But then the next year will roll around, and it’s such an epic photo competition, I can’t resist giving it a shot. This year I scrolled through all the other entries and really enjoyed checking out some unique images from some of my favorite photographers, and was also blown away by so many epic photos from photographers I’ve never heard of. The quality of work this year was amazing and I’m honored to take the win. Thank you to Monster Children for not only running the best photo competition but for also doing such an amazing job of keeping print alive. The new photo annual looks unreal! And thank you to Roark supporting the surf category.

Cheers!

Rambo

Isn’t nice? Imagine if he’d got to say it in person (sorry, man). So, congratulations, Rambo, and congrats to all the winners and runners-up, and to all the people who scored a framed photo at the end of the party. Be sure to check whose work you flew off with like a bloody seagull here, and then find them on Insta to say thanks and offer some sort of remittance. Special thanks to the category sponsors: G-Shock, Boost Mobile, Roark, Herschel, Slow & Low, and Sun Bum, and thanks again to everyone who came through to make it such a special night!