Café Society Competition 2012: Melbourne Winners Announced

Congratulations to Alice Beaven (above image, center) on winning the Melbourne award of Sanpellegrino Café Society Photography Competition together with the city's café Espresso 3121 and this picture:

Now in its 13th edition, the competition involves selected cafes throughout Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane: these Australian cafés were asked to collaborate with a final year photography student from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), The University of New South Wales College of Fine Arts, and Griffith University Queensland College of Art to create an image that captures the café society lifestyle in their allocated café.

On the Melbourne 'podium' we also found Zoe Economides (with Espressino café), at 2nd place, and Marc Delahaye (Victorian Wine Centre) at 3rd place, with the images you find below:

While the Melbourne winners were announced, we have yet to see who will win the competition in Sydney and Brisbane. The competition's main objective is to capture the spirit of café society - a combination of style, culture and conviviality, which found its perfect context along with the ritual of coffee - while staying faithful to the specific theme, which changes every year. What the jury is looking for is an appealing idea, an original subject and technical skill. And of course, a good dose of creativity. All of this combined is worthy of a special prize: this year the winning image will be published in newspaper the day after the events, and winning students will be awarded with cash prizes, a framed certificate and the framed image.

In Melbourne the brief was: "Café society is the lifestyle that lives in the city's cultural café institutions. Each café has its own unique characteristics that draw people to it. Capture a depiction of this lifestyle in your café". In Sydney and Brisbane, the focus was more on the fashion side of café society: "Today fashion photography is not just about displaying fashion items, it has a story or a mood behind the picture. Just like the city's café institutions, where the "fashionable" people like to go to express their style. Capture this in your photo". 

Curious to find out all the other winners? You just have to stay tuned and wait until 15th and 29th October, when the award ceremonies will take place in Sydney and Brisbane, respectively.