Ponch Hawkes
Ponch Hawkes is a Melbourne-based freelance photographer. Early in her career, Hawkes worked as a journalist and photographer for Digger magazine. Since then her photographs have been published widely in Australian books, magazines and newspapers. Hawkes has been the photographer for, and a member of, Circus Oz since its inception in 1978. Her series, Risk, focuses on the highs and lows of being a circus performer. Hawkes has also been a member and the photographer of the Australian Performing Group at the Pram Factory since the early 1970s, and was the first administrator of the Women’s Theatre Group in the mid-1970s.
Hawkes has worked on assignments in Cambodia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Holland, England and the USA, amongst other countries. Much of her work focuses on personal relationships, and the lives and achievements of women. The series Generations, Our Mums and Us and Best Mates are indicative of Hawkes’ style of documentary practice in which her subjects are invited to participate actively in the photographic process.
