After the success of the inaugural event last January, the Festival is returning to the Lennox Head Cultural and Community Centre. “This festival is unique because it provides an opportunity for the whole community to engage in what is happening for girls and young women,” says festival organiser Natalie Benhayon. “This year we’ve themed it ‘Respect and  Celebrate’ to reflect the full program on offer. The Respect series of workshops and events will cover issues such as body image and body confidence, cyber abuse, social media and Internet use and relationships and communication. While live music, perfume making workshops, the beauty tent and expression workshops will be a chance for the whole community to Celebrate girls and young women.”

The Girl To Woman Festival is open to the whole family, mums, dads, brothers and grandparents are welcome too. As a participant from last year commented the festival was, “a wonderful day with something for everyone. I enjoyed it just as much as my 10 year old niece.”

Tickets are available at the website girltowoman

About the Organisers    

The Girl to Woman Festival is contributed to by community members and supported by businesses across Australia.

The post Respect… appeared first on .

The post Morning bliss at Lennox Head appeared first on .

Grono, who was born and grew up on the Central Coast, gathers her inspiration directly from the world around her – the beach and ocean, the wilderness and bush, and the extraordinary tribe of people that inhabit the Northern Rivers, where she now lives.  “Wild landscapes are integral to my being,” says the 38-year-old photographer.  “I always loved exploring, and I think from an early age I could find beauty in ordinary everyday things.  If I wasn’t outside exploring, I used to love to read – and I was a huge fan of the Japanese TV series Monkey Magic.”

Natalie Grono’s Children of the Tribe was a finalist in the 2014 Australian Life photographic competition.

It’s a connection that makes sense looking at the apparently simple but layered meaning of the winning photograph from the Olive Cotton award, Pandemonium’s Shadow.  The photograph beat 82 finalists from all around Australia to take out the prestigous award, with a $20,000 prize attached, which is named after one of Australia’s best loved leading twentieth century photographers, and features Grono’s daughters Amali (left), and Ava-Luna (with the dress over her head).

In all of Grono’s photography a love of humanity and the world shines out.  “I remember once on my travels I was staying at a remote community and I was given the nick-name ‘the small girl with the big smile’,” she says.  It’s her open-mindeness and deep connection to local community that has seen Grono create such images as Feather and the Goddess Pool (2014) of local Byron Bay resident, Feather, which won Grono the 2015 National Photographic Portrait Prize People’s Choice Award.

Feather, by Natalie Grono, winner of the National Photographic Portrait Prize People’s Choice Award.

“I was drawn to the fact that Feather, who is in her mid-70s now, is so comfortable in her own skin despite the pressure that is put on women by everybody to be a certain age and type if they’re going to bare their skin at the beach,” she says. “I think the image resonated with people because it invites them to look at a confident older woman is proud of her body and not afraid to show the lines that tell her story.”

Although as a child Grono hadn’t yet identified her desire to be a photographer, when she was studying journalism at University, it quickly became a creative passion, and a way for her to communicate with the world.  During the past 15 years she has honed her skill – bringing a photojournalistic intention to the most lyrical of subjects, and creating playful and mysterious images that work on many levels, reminiscent in some ways of Julia Cameron, and her purposely out-of-focus portraits, that brought an energy and movement into portrait photography for the first time.

A mother to two children, Grono’s favourite personal work is Sea Dreaming, a series she began after the birth of her first daughter.  She photographed the series in the Lennox region, and for her the work conjures memories of her childhood, and the never-ending enchantment of the beach.  But although she loves to photograph her local environment the adventurer in her has taken her to many exotic locations, and perhaps some of her most enigmatic works came from her  journey to Black Rock Desert to photograph of the Burning Man Festival, which produced her series, Rites of Passage.

Natalie Grono: Burning Man Love – from the Black Rock Desert Burning Man Festival.

“The Festival sees around 50,000 people all gather in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert to create a temporary city, Black Rock City.  It takes place on an ancient lake bed known as Playa,” says Grono, “and the festival is dedicated to community, art practices, radical self-expression and self-reliance.  A week later, everybody leaves, and the particpants, known as ‘Burners’ leave no trace that they’ve been there.  It’s a really extraordinary experience.”

Grono’s latest series is closer to home than Nevada.  She’s worked on a project entitled the Moon and the Muse, featuring inspirational women of the Northern Rivers. Don’t be surprised if there are many more prizes to come.

The Olive Cotton Award for Photographic Portraiture is on show at the Tweed Regional Gallery until Sunday September 27, 2015: tweed.nsw.gov.au/Exhibitions

You can see more of Natalie Grono’s work on nataliegrono.com

The post Love at first photo: Natalie Grono’s award-winning career appeared first on .

Sometimes an idea is so simple, that when it appears before us we can’t imagine why it hasn’t existed before – well, this Sunday January 18 at Lennox Head, such an idea has come to fruition with the inaugural Girl to Woman Festival.

The Girll to Woman Festival celebrates the beauty and grace of girls and young women in our communities.  It’s open to everybody – dads, brothers and male friends welcome – and includes music, market stalls, workshops and presentations to support the health and wellbeing of young women and their families as they transition from girlhood to womanhood.

The day will include presentations, discussions groups and workshops from health professionals, teachers, community members, musicians, film-makers, parents, grand-parents and young people.  The Festival is deigned to support girls as they navigate their teenage years – negotiating their way through the maze of modern life and the many complex issues it throws up.

For more information go to: girltowoman

The post Girl to woman festival appeared first on .

Grommets galore – the future of Australian surfing is in safe hands. Photo: Ness Moore

At Lennox Head’s recent Oz Grom competition, Ness Moore found the future of surfing in Australia is in safe hands…

Flying along at high speed, the pint-sized grommet launches himself at the lip of the wave – projecting high into the air. With poise and grace he flies, weightless – board and boy, sea and sky. He’s made it and he’s only 10.

The Skullcandy Oz Grom Open, held on seven-mile beach at Lennox Head, not far from Byron Bay,  is a vibrant showcase of some of our best junior surfers. With competitors flying in from all corners of the world, the competition is a highlight on the junior circuit, and it seems Australian surfing is set to continue its dominance throughout the world.

Blonde haired grommets roam the event site, surfboards and skateboards scatter the shoreline. It’s a festival of fun and everyone’s invited. Don’t be fooled though. These young competitors mean business. They’re here to win – with style and grace beyond their years, they perform aerials, executing exciting new-age manoeuvres –  they’ve got it all covered. They’re agile, fast and know how to smash a lip to pieces. They’re all the best surfers combined. A dash of Dane, a taste of Taj, a heap of Kelly and a mountain of Medina. These kids have grown up watching the best of the best, now they’re going to be even better and with kids as young as seven surfing with such prowess, one can only speculate on the heights they will reach.

Beautiful weather and great waves made for a perfect day out. Photo: Ness Moore

One such competitor who is aiming for big things is 12-year-old Finn Cox. Finn has been surfing for six years and competing for two years, and this year he made it into the quarter-finals of the under-12 division of the Skullcandy grommet open. “I love being out in the water surfing,” Finn says, “although my favourite wave is ‘Gallows’, back in Margaret River which is my home town.” Finn’s long-term ambition is to become a full-time professional surfer.

12-year-old Finn Cox. Photo: Ness Moore

The waves were perfect for this year’s event. Sandbanks lined up with right and left-handers peeling off up and down the beach. The kids were stoked. The waves were fun, not too big, not too small. They had shape and offered up sections to perform upon. Mother Nature was smiling – along with the rest of us.

These kids were as impressive out of the water as in it. Professional all the way, one young man having been knocked out in the quarter-finals personally congratulated his opponents, shaking their hands and complimenting them on a heat well surfed. Talent and manners – it doesn’t get any better than that.

To see this year’s results and find out how you can be a part of next year’s event, visit www.skullcandyozgromopen.com.au

Ness Moore (aka The Lioness https://thelioness.com.au/)

The post Grommets Rule the Waves appeared first on .