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 .

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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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Australian Faces for Australia Day

Here's a gallery of some of the faces I've encountered over the last few years. Some are locally produced, others are imported but once we call this place home then we are each Australian.

A very Happy Australia Day to those who got 'lumbered' with Australia by birth, those who chose to call it home (and those who are trying) and especially to those whose heritage and essence rolls back through years too many to properly fathom.

At this time of year there is always discussion about who we really are, is this the right day to celebrate and is the flag we have the one we deserve? Well, knowing Australia like I do, I'm sure these 'discussions' will go on a long time before a final decision is made on any or all of those topics.

In the meantime, today is as good a day as any to celebrate, commemorate, and enjoy but I reckon next Thursday week would work ok as well. We don't need much excuse for a party. As for the flag, well, the more ideas the merrier until we find one that works for us all. It's only really important function is to rally us - not divide us.

And who really is an Australian? Who knows - but here's some faces to show we come in lot of varieties.

Australian Faces by Paul Foley - Images by Paul Foley