Bathing Beauties - The Tweeting Queens of 2014

A few days ago I was asked to participate in the media launch of the ‘Australia Day Your Way’ initiative for 2015. In 2014 The National Australia Day Council partnered with Twitter and the National Museum of Australia to promote the sharing of images using  #australiaday .

The Dawn Patrol © Paul Foley Visit the Gallery

Over 70,000 tweets and 30,000 images were shared with the #australiaday hashtag and 5 people who published images on Australia Day in 2014 have been chosen to attend the launch event in Canberra on January 16, 2015. Probably due to some clerical error I am one of these people! 

I love the celebration of Australia Day - especially when it recognises the complete story of our country. From it’s people living here for the centuries before Captain Phillip’s arrival through to the multiracial peoplescape we live in today. In truth, I have always considered every day Australia Day - even the occasional awful ones as we witnessed this week.

A few days before Australia Day this year I selected some pics from my archive to post on the 26th to celebrate some of the Australian faces I had photographed over the years. 

One was ‘Bathing Beauties’ and I was so happy to see that it selected by The National Australia Day Council. 

I made this picture quite a few years ago at Newcastle Ocean Baths. I was down there one dawn on an advertising shoot when I heard loud splashing and laughing demands from behind me to ‘Take our picture!’ I turned around to see these four wonderful, feisty and definitely not shy women. How could I refuse?

So the four other selectees and myself will be in Canberra on January 16th to tell the stories behind our pictures and invite all Australians to tweet their own pics on January 26th using #australiaday. I hope you will take a few moments on January 26th, 2015 to tweet your favourite Aussie face and don’t forget to add #australiaday

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