Royal Adelaide Show champions on the secrets to success and what sparked their passion
Here’s the stories of some of our inspirational Royal Adelaide Show champions.
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They’re the people up all night putting the finishing touches on award-winning cakes and making sure their produce is as fresh as can be for judging.
They spend hours each day on their labour of love to create a showstopping masterpiece and travel to furthest parts of the world to capture the money shot.
The Sunday Mail spoke to three of our Royal Adelaide Show 2024 award winners about their entries, their secrets to success and their passion.
Rhiannon Atkinson is proudly the Grand Champion of Cookery – receiving the most points across three categories – cake decorating, open cookery and, jams and preserves.
This year’s show was made even more special as it is the first time her six-year-old daughter Aubrey-Rose Whelan, who has cerebral palsy, entered the junior cookery section.
“Aubrey loves watching what I do, so we put her in and thought ‘see how she goes’ and when I walked past the cabinet and saw the ribbon I thought I was going to burst into tears in the middle of the pavilion,” Ms Atkinson says.
“I was so proud. Having a child with a disability requires a team effort and we were actually doing a physiotherapy session while she was making one of her entries – everyone got involved.”
Ms Atkinson’s 28 entries, included pickled vegetables and citrus oil cake and she says cooking gives her an outlet and “it’s definitely given me a sense of self”.
“Now entering shows has become a whole thing for the family. If we enter, we have to come and it’s a family day and something that is not related to her disability or therapy,” Ms Atkinson, of Munno Para, says.
Despite a few close calls – including her buttercream decorated cake nearly not making the judging table – she believes it is her tomato sauce that grabbed the judges attention.
“It’s actually a quince and apple tomato sauces and the quinces are from our tree that gave us about 69kg of fruit this season,” Ms Atkinson says.
“I get really creative with my flavours and my sweet sauce this year was a chocolate cherry sauce infused with white cocoa liquor.
“You have to experiment with flavours. Be brave. Sometimes traditional is good, but sometimes creative is better.
“Use quality ingredients where possible and always bake to your own taste, not to a judges.”
In the handicraft section, a colourful quilt of a peacock titled: Bedazzled received the prize for Best Overall Exhibit in Quilts, selected from nine quilting categories.
It is the first time in more than a decade Zara Zannettino, of Highbury, has entered the show and she says to win the coveted prize “is a real honour”.
“Traditional patchwork and piecing is incredibly meticulous and tends to be what judges are looking for,” Ms Zannettino says.
“So it’s really lovely that they’re seeing art quilts as being worthy.”
She says the piece “happened incredibly quickly” taking 110 hours, combining her love of nature photography and an encounter with a male peacock at the Adelaide Zoo.
“I took the time to sit on the ground and over time, he approached me and he engulfed me in his tail like an inverted igloo,” she says.
“He had all his beautiful feathers looking over me and it was just such a magical moment and it was various photographs I took on that occasion that became a resource.
“I like to capture those moments that stand out and provide me with awe.”
Ms Zannettino converts the photo into fabric and thread, by free-cutting and building a collage based on the photo’s highlights and colours “then the tedious part is sewing them all together”.
She started quilting 20 years ago as an at-home mum and as a way to deal with grief after losing a sibling.
“I had two babies and I was in a full-time care role for multi-generational family situations, so it gave me something tangible, I suppose, to actually show at the end of a long day,” she says.
“I discovered I had a knack and so I started teaching, and I was sort of fostered by the South Australian quilters guild. Now my quilts are travelling around the world.”
Rhys Altham’s prize-winning photograph titled Reynisfjara Wind is a memory of a trip to Iceland with his wife after the coronavirus pandemic.
“Travelling is something we tend to do as much as we can, so after Covid we thought where is a place that always felt out of reach and we thought Iceland,” Mr Altham says.
The couple visited Reynisfjara Beach, one of the country’s most dangerous destinations because of its sneaker waves, and it is here on the black-sand, Mr Altham captures his shot.
“Because of the sand and a bit of snow, I was able to see the wind in the photos which is not something you can take a photo of, so I did spend a bit of extra time trying to photo different people getting off the beach,” he says.
“There were crazy levels of wind and these two people were struggling to walk off and looking back I knew there were going to be some good (photos) there.”
His monochrome picture received the most votes in photography, seeing him named champion, a huge achievement for Mr Altham, who works predominantly in fashion photography.
“Photography has been my career, but is also my hobby as well,” Mr Altham, of Edwardstown, says.
“I’m always carrying the gear and taking as many photos as I can. If people want to get into it, it takes a lot of practice and consistency.
“Be open to what’s going on around you, in that moment on the beach there was a lot going on but I was open to it happening rather than trying to craft an image.”
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