Stunning snaps of Moree life on show
LIKE many country towns, Moree locals are a lot more used to hearing the youngsters describe their home town as “a hole” rather than a beautiful place to grow up.
Those who grow up, finish school and remain living there often struggle to see past their childhood views, instead looking at friends and relatives who “escaped” as somehow more fortunate.
Susannah Pearse and some fellow residents started the My Moree Facebook page to help residents celebrate the many reasons people were proud to call the town home.
Mrs Pearse said it all started with making a few videos of locals talking about what the town meant to them, but it soon grew into a real connection point for proud community members.
The group recently put out the call for residents to submit photos depicting what living in Moree meant to them and the response was unprecedented.
Mrs Pearse said they expected a handful of responses, but what they got was enough to stage an exhibition and still leave more than 300 images out.
The best of the best comprised 100 stunning photos, with five category winners and a slew of finalists.
They were drawn from a pool of 437 amazing entries.
It turned out to be the most popular exhibition ever held in the town’s community art gallery.
“it has been really positive and great for our town,” Mrs Pearse said.
“It was surprising how beautiful the photos were.
“We live here and we can get a bit blase about the landscape around us, so it was amazing how many beautiful images came through.”
She said when she first moved to the region herself,
she imagined rolling green hills and was a little sad to see the stark plains reaching for the horizon, but said it had its own beauty that grew on a person with time.
Besides giving the townspeople an opportunity to
showcase the region and giving the art gallery its most successful exhibition, it also gave Moree’s budding photographers the chance to get together and meet each other.
“We had the gala
presentation for the winners of the competition and all the budding photographers came together for the first time,” Mrs Pearse said.
“They decided they wanted to get a photography group together.”
It also offered a little insight for those involved in promoting tourism to the region.
“It had significant tourism benefits,” Mrs Pearse said.
“We had someone overhear some people in a cafe who said they only stopped in after seeing the beautiful photos on Facebook.
“It wasn’t what we were aiming for but it was really good to hear anyway.”
She said she wasn’t sure if the competition would become an annual event, but they would definitely hold another competition next year.
Ideas had been tossed around about making a calendar or coffee table book, or even selling prints of the photos, but nothing had been finalised.
The exhibition is now complete, but people keen to get a glimpse of all the entries can still head to the My Moree Facebook page.