Queensland Rail Photography Competition winner!

Keep clear of the tracks (QLD Rail photo competition winner) ~ Philli Overton

Last week I received the news that I had won the 2024 Queensland Rail Community Photo Competition for my entry "Keep clear of the tracks." This being my first ever photography competition award, it seems fitting, and perhaps hardly surprising, that my image was that of a railway station!

Queensland Rail had run the 2024 photography competition in conjunction with the planned upgrades for Bundamba, Burpengary, Lindum, Morningside, Banyo and Buranda railway stations, and my winning entry taken of Banyo Station will now be enlarged onto steel panels and incorporated as part of the new station design, serving as artwork to be enjoyed by the public for the years to come. The competition called for a black and white image that captured the suburb or station surrounds just prior to the new station build, and I thought that capturing the level crossing (from the safety of the gated pedestrian crossing between trains of course), was a worthy image of a scene that is slowly disappearing from Brisbane's urban railway landscape.

Congratulations to the other winners; Melanie Sinclair for Bundamba; Brendan Hirst for Burpengary; Glenda Markwell for Lindum; Patricia Woods for Morningside and Elenaor Deak for Buranda. Your work was amazing! (The other images can be viewed here; Queensland Rail Photo Competition Winning Entries).

And no, there wasn't a typo with my name. As life leads me in a new direction with photography now being my focus, I'm choosing to do so under the name Philli O as I leave a career of writing as Phillip Overton behind me. The recent announcement simply fast-tracks that process, as in the background I have been busy building my new online presence in what has been an amazingly transformative year that now includes a photography award. It is just another reminder that you are never too old to return to study, reinvent yourself and pursue something new.

I can't wait to see what the new Banyo Station will look like with my photograph featured as artwork, and will be sure to post some pictures here when the station is re-opened later this year!