Head On Festival Sydney – A Lucky Family Exhibition

This May, I exhibited as an associate photographer of the Head On Festival in Sydney. I was also a finalist in their portraiture exhibition so I made the trip over from Perth. Heres my exhibition A Lucky Family

A Lucky Family

A Lucky Family is a documentary/portrait photographic project exploring the daily rituals of a family dog.

George is more than just a dog to us, he’s been our family’s backbone and provided comfort in the most difficult times of our lives. From losing my sister to cancer and dealing with miscarriages and postnatal depression – George never left me. He stayed by my side, curled up on the couch licking tears from my cheeks. When our children finally came along George loved them just as much as we did and became further integrated in every daily ritual, from playing dress ups and tagging along in make believe adventures, to the exhilarating experience of watching the garbage being collected. George and my youngest child share a particularly special bond – they both know illness well. Theo has been in and out of hospital since he was three weeks old with breathing difficulties and it’s always George waiting to welcome him home and cheer him up. And George had such a severe bout of pancreatitis we were advised to euthanise him almost 7 years ago. Bleary eyed we drove to emergency early one morning after a dreaded phone call that George’s condition had worsened. When we got there George lifted his head for the first time to greet us, he placed his head in my hands and when I looked into his eyes I knew it wasn’t his time just yet. We spent our entire life savings on treatment and thankfully George made a full recovery.

In late 2017 George suddenly became ill, a tumour silently growing in his abdomen had ruptured causing him to go into shock. Once again we felt the same dread, rushing him back to the vet and if it had been as easy as spending our life savings again we would have done it in an instant, but tragically this time, we knew it was goodbye. The hardest thing about losing George has been adjusting to our on-going daily rituals alone. Our routines are so ingrained in our psyche and habits are hard to break – I still wait for his husky bark to announce our petrified delivery guy. The silence in our house has some times been unbearable but we slowly adjust.

Our friends and family sent their condolences, as you would do when losing a family member, everyone said George was lucky to have us, but I feel like we were a lucky family to have been blessed with George.

Krystle Ricci is a family photographer living in Perth, Western Australia. Her work revolves around her family and photographing the ordinary everyday. She was a finalist in the Olive Cotton Portrait award 2017 and her depiction of George and Theo had her named Australia’s top 10 emerging documentary photographers in Capture, 2017. This year Krystle came first place in the Contemporary Landscape In Photography award and has again been named top 10 in Capture’s emerging portrait photographers, Australia. She also exhibited as a finalist at the Head On Portrait prize in Sydney 2018.