Head On festival has grown to become Australia’s largest photo festival since launching in Sydney back in 2010, and such rapid expansion calls for the next logical step – world domination.

For the first time this September, Head On will display the finest entries from the Portrait Prize at photo festivals in China and the US, following a successful debut at the Auckland Festival of Photography in June.

The Portrait Prize consists of 40 Australian finalists, whose work will be exhibited at the Pingyao International Photo Festival in Shanxi, China, which runs from September 19 to 25 and attracts an estimated 100,000 visitors, according to Head On. The same portraits will be simultaneously shown at Photoville in Brooklyn, New York – a popular ‘pop up photo festival’ that coincides with Dumbo Arts festival that runs from September 18 to 28.

‘Sunbaker II’ by Tom Jefferson. Head On Portraiture Prize finalist. Source: Headon.com.au

‘I am thrilled and very proud Head On was invited to these important international photographic festivals. It is such a fantastic opportunity to expose great Australian talent to new audiences overseas,’ Moshe Rosenzveig, founder and director of Head On Photo Festival, told Australian Photography. ‘To be invited reflects not only the quality of work produced by Australian photographers, but the quality of a festival like Head On.’

If you can’t make it to China or New York by the end of this week, there is an encore exhibition running in Sydney at the Paddington Reservoir Gardens until October 20 as part of the Sydney Art & About festival.