Joseph McGlennon
McGlennon’s photographic works are majestic recreations of both living and extinct animals in their natural habitats. McGlennon’s lens brings his subjects out of the realm of exotic specimen or historical curiosity and pushes them, living and breathing, into today. Hundreds of photographs and weeks of layering and arranging lead to the final image. The landscape is just as important – there are no blurred backgrounds or subdued foregrounds. Minute details create a hyper-real effect that pull viewers into flora and fauna that the planet stands to lose.
McGlennon came to photography following a successful career in advertising. He won the 2015 William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize for Florilegium #1, was a finalist in the Doug Moran Photographic Prize (2011 and 2012) and the Olive Cotton Award (2017). He is collected in private and public collections such as Artbank, Australian National Gallery, National Museum of Australia, National Museum of Scotland, Parliament of Australia, Western Plains Cultural Centre and Newcastle Art Gallery.
About the image Awakening #10 - Hard Land
McGlennon’s luminous, meticulously crafted photograph Awakening #10 - Hard Land portrays a rare Black Female Cockatoo as a spirited emblem of renewal in the Australian landscape.
Hints of drought and past bushfires linger in the horizon but her ember-like tail feathers and confident stance introduce optimism. She occupies the land not as victim but as survivor - a reminder that resilience, regeneration, and beauty define Australia’s harsh yet remarkable environment. A picture of splendour shadowed by precarity - an image that reminds us how thin the line is between resilience and loss.
