Heart of the Nation: Sydney 2000

This remarkable image of Iggy Pop with fans on stage at Sydney Opera House is a winner in the Sony World Photography Awards.

Joyous communion: Iggy Pop at Sydney Opera House. Picture: Antoine Veling

“Get up here and dance with me!” Iggy Pop roared at the crowd towards the end of his gig at Sydney Opera House last year, and the crowd duly obliged. It caught security on the hop – they weren’t forewarned – but created an extraordinary opportunity for hobbyist photographer Antoine Veling, standing 10 rows back from the stage. And didn’t he make the most of it? His shot, a winner in the 2020 Sony World Photography Awards, has been likened to a Caravaggio painting with its religious overtones and use of “chiaroscuro” – a strong contrast between light and dark that isolates the subject, gives the picture a sense of depth and heightens its emotive impact. And if all that sounds a little wanky, consider this instead: the photo’s subject, the bare-chested wild man of rock’n’roll, still oozes charisma at the age of 73. Onya, Pop.

Veling, a 62-year-old from Sydney’s Hills district who works in the construction industry, has long nurtured twin passions for music and photography. Indeed, one spawned the other: at the age of 17, inspired by the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, he sold three Monkees LPs and Alice Cooper’s School’s Out to buy his first camera, a Nikon. (He still regrets letting go of School’s Out. “It would be worth a fortune today,” he sighs.) Three months ago he and his wife became grandparents for the first time, but the lockdown has meant they haven’t been able to see little Noah “nearly as much as we’d like to”, he says.

Veling titled this shot Mark 5:28, in reference to the biblical line: “She thought, ‘If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed’.” That’s a nod to its Christian-icon vibe and specifically the girl who’s reaching out to touch Pop’s sainted flesh. (The other stand-out figure is the singer’s road manager, Jos, beside him in the grey shirt, trying to keep order while simultaneously preventing the mic stand from being, ahem, souvenired.)

Another way of looking at this image? To simply look, and savour. The human intimacy. The joyous communion of friends and strangers. Wait ’til we all get out... Can’t you just taste it?