Photographers encouraged to produce their wintery best in Snowy Valleys Sculpture Trail comp

Once upon a time, come winter, visitors would flock to Laurel Hill, between Tumut and Tumbarumba, to frolic in the snow beneath the majestic century-old sugar pine forest, until the summer of 2019-2020 when it was lost to fire.

Four years later they’re heading to the same place, but for a very different reason, which is the brand new (April 2024 new, that is) Sculpture Forest at Laurel Hill and Pilot Hill in Bago State Forest.

As they do, they might want to think about taking a few snaps.

Because this year the snow meets the sea in a winter photography competition which, for the winners, means a two-night stay at Bondi Beach in Sydney, just in time for the popular Sculpture by the Sea exhibition later this year.

The photography competition is being run by Sculpture by the Sea, the organisation behind not just the Bondi annual event, held in October and November, but also at Western Australia’s Cottesloe Beach in February and March and the permanent sculpture trail in Snowy Valleys, launched in December 2021.

To enter all you need to do is take a photo of one or more of the sculptures in the Snowy Valleys Sculpture Trail before the end of winter this year and upload the photo to Instagram.

The winner will not only receive two nights’ complimentary accommodation in Bondi during this year’s Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi held from 18 October to 4 November but will be invited to join the team of official exhibition photographers for a day, earning a photographer’s fee of $500.

Sculpture by the Sea founder and CEO David Handley said snow had been a wintery feature of the 150-kilometre Snowy Valley Sculpture Trail since the trail launched but, he said, the slightly higher altitudes at Pilot Hill and Laurel Hill gave rise to more snow, which added an extra dimension to the already impressive sculptures.

This was evidenced last week as a cold front swept through the alpine region, resulting in a blizzard of frosty photos on social media, punctuated by several very striking snowy sculpture images taken at Bago State Forest.

This has lined up with precisely what David had in mind when the Snowy Valleys Sculpture Trail was first masterminded, back in June 2020, as part of the socio-economic response and recovery to the Black Summer bushfires of 2019-2020.

The Sculpture Forest was developed by Sculpture by the Sea in partnership with Forestry Corporation of NSW and the local community, in response to the bushfires, which had a significant impact on the region and included the loss of the much-loved Sugar Pines Walk and Pine Cathedral experience.

“When it came to the tragic loss of the sugar pines at Laurel Hill in the fires, we knew it would take a long time to be replaced,” he said.

“We hoped by placing sculptures among the new plantation of sugar pines and others at Pilot Hill Arboretum that we could create something that would be a different attraction while helping in some way for some of the locals to make up for the loss of the sugar pines by making the area once again a place to celebrate with friends and family and a place to welcome visitors,” he said.

He said knowing the sculptures would be blanketed by snow at Pilot Hill and Laurel Hill each winter was a feature of the collection that would capture people’s imagination.

“However, a winter photo competition with images going all over the world by social media is new for us,” David said. “We’ve already had comments from people saying they didn’t realise it snowed in Australia.”

He said he hoped the winter photography competition would encourage even more visitation to the Snowy Valleys in winter.

Head to the Sculpture By The Sea website for more details on the competition.

The Sculpture Forest stage of the Snowy Valleys Sculpture Trail offers a range of experiences at three very different sites, the first of which is Laurel Hill where large sculpture installations greet incoming visitors travelling the Batlow Road on the Snowy Valleys Way between Batlow and Tumbarumba.

Just a turn to the left and up the hill slightly is Pilot Hill Arboretum where three very different sculptures, including one by Batlow local artist Robyn Sweeney, sit among historic plantings of a diverse range of trees dating back to the early 1900s.

This then leads visitors to the Alpine Ash Walk where eight sculptures are studded along a stunning, 1.5-km Alpine Ash Walk at Pilot Hill Arboretum.

The new Sculpture Forest adds an entirely new dimension to the existing Snowy Valleys Sculpture Trail, an experience that currently includes 38 sculptures across 150 kilometres in the towns of Adelong, Batlow, Tumbarumba, Talbingo, the hamlet of Tooma and the three Tumbarumba region vineyards with cellar doors.