This year, however, Bawden caught less than 90 minutes sleep in the 24 hours between December 31 and January 1. He and 20 fellow photographers, including Western Suburbs Weekly photographer Kelly Pilgrim-Byrne, worked together to capture thousands of images of how West Australians rang in the New Year.
“It was originally meant to run on 1999 as a millennium project, but unfortunately my mother became very ill and I had to shelve it,” Mr Bawden said. “In the end, we selected one shot to represent every 15 minutes to come up with 97 unique photos.
“We got into some places that we couldn’t ever have dreamed of. Team focus was the key to it all. I photographed from the Central Park rooftop, the fire station at Murdoch, and kicked off my shoes and socks at the Sikh temple in Canning Vale.”
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READ NOWFor her photo series, Pilgrim-Byrne visited the Native Animal Rehabilitation Centre (ARC) in Bibra Lake.
“I really wanted to capture the amazing work the volunteers do every day of the year,” she said.
“I couldn’t imagine documenting the 24 hours leading into New Year’s Day without the inclusion of animals, so I was thrilled when Native ARC agreed to have me spend three hours with them.
“Even though all the photographers were spread out across Perth, the sense of belonging to a community of like-minded people was a wonderful by-product of the project.
“Seeing all of the final images together at the end of the 24-hour period was brilliant.”
Bawden said he felt like he had no choice but to continue Shoulder to Shoulder next year.
“It was so successful that we have reams of messages from people asking how they can get involved; it has to be an ongoing thing,” he said.
View the Shoulder to Shoulder online gallery at www.facebook.com/Shoulderproject .