When Photography leads to Art, Awards and Exhibitions – Celebrating the creative talent of Sandy Winkle

6th August 2024

At Wild Images we’ve always loved the diversity of experiences that our guests bring to our tours.

We’ve taken a huge variety of travellers from partners of photographer guests, artists, travel bloggers, amateur photographers and semi-professionals right up to National Geographic shooters whose work has appeared internationally in books and exhibitions from our tours.

This year we had the pleasure of hosting Australian photographer and artist, Sandy Winkle, in Bangladesh.

During her time on tour it was quickly becoming apparent that she was capturing some very special images, and unsurprisingly, we have been excited to see them unfolding on her social media.

International Recognition

We were pleased to hear that we weren’t the only people enthralled with some of Sandy’s work. Her wonderful photo of the children we met in Bangladesh’s rice courtyards has recently won the eyes of the experts and the crowd at Photocrowd’s newest member competition.

One of the wonderful aspects of photography competitions like Photocrowd and also LensCulture, is the chance to have an expert review your portfolio and critique it.

Seeking an outsider’s gentle opinion of your work is a very healthy way to grow your career in photography and a good critique is something that you can learn a lot from, even when you look back on it long after it was done.

Sandy’s reviewer was Matthew Finn who wrote:

“Great composition and powerful eye contact really make this image stand out from the crowd. The use of black and white adds that documentary feel to the picture and the stunning stare of the child back to the camera is elevated with the pure whites in the eyes. This is a wonderful example of a photographer bringing so many elements together to create a stunning portrait. Not easy iwth so many people in the shot but the close crop to only include the central figure means all our attention stays with them. Fun and dynamic. A great capture”

Professional photographer Matthew Fin is the recipient of the Jerwood/Photoworks Award 2015 and has published 2 monographs; Mother (Dewi Lewis, 2017) and School of Art (Stanley/Barker, 2019)

Sandy’s award winning image of children in the incredible rice drying courtyards of Bangladesh (image by Sandy Winkle)

Shopping with a Photography Habit

We have sometimes joked on our tours that souvenir shopping can take precedence over photography and while we initially thought that Bangladesh would be so intense, very little time would be available to explore things to shop.

Well! We were wrong! During our last day on tour we squeezed in a couple of hours to go to the New Market in downtown Dhaka. It was the best place to buy things like handmade cloth and jewellery. We all indulged in buying beautiful saree fabrics and clothes but Sandy decided to stay on for a few days to do more.
She bought masses of hand embroidered saree silk to actually weave baskets from! It was the first time we had heard of fabric being used in such a creative way.

Through her tiny gallery “The Sheila Shack” in the stunning area of Margaret River in Western Australia, where she holds classes in basket weaving, we were impressed even further to see Sandy’s baskets take shape after our tour. Not only are they made from fabric that she bought, they are decorated with Bangladesh jewellery to embellish them.

Take a look at her stunning creations!

The spirits of Australia and Bangladesh intertwined in the beautiful woven baskets of Sandy Winkle who joined our Bangladesh, The Ship Breakers and So Much More tour in 2024 (image by Sandy Winkle)

Picking up on the themes of her home area, the turquoise waters of Western Australia’s Margaret River region, and Bangladesh, woven with exotic gold thread (image by Sandy Winkle)

Future Exhibition

Sandy’s mesmerising combination of photography and weaving will feature in an exhibition in Western Australia in early 2025. When more details are announced we will happily share them.

In the meantime, if you would like to see more of Sandy’s photos from Bangladesh, her Instagram is here: https://www.instagram.com/wild_winkle_art/

We are already excited about her next achievements!