Moyle's award-winning images are created by long exposures over many seconds, with his unique technique and artistic vision attracting serious attention.

Fresh from picking up a swag of medals at the Australian Professional Photography Awards, including the highest scoring portrait print in the country, Moyle has now taken out the $10,000 first prize at the inaugural Australian Portrait Conference for his print Imperfect Perfect. 

The win came as a shock to the emerging artist, who entered the award for experience and exposure rather than to etch his name onto a trophy.

The winning print, Imperfect Perfect, was entered into the Portrait Conference before Moyle landed his 97/100 score at the APPA awards.

“I just needed to get my work out there a bit more,” Moyle said.

“Doing fine art photography you really need to get some awards and recognition behind you and get the kudos to make it worthwhile for the people who want to buy your work."

Moyle’s winning print is best described as an abstract portrait: A somewhat androgynous human form, with feminine curves, a disappearing waist but a seemingly shaved head.

The technique that allows Moyle to capture these contorted images started off as an accidental discovery.

“It was kind of a mistake I made about three years ago in Sydney while doing a shoot with a model and I really liked the results,” he said.

The slow shutter speed of the camera coupled with a mix of continuous and strobe lighting is what gives scope for the twisted figures to be digitally captured, but for Moyle the technique also offers a throwback to the days of film photography. 

“Thematically it throws back to being a bit more organic,” he said.

“I can’t tell what I'm getting, it means I can compose, but I won’t know the end result.”

At a first glance, many of Moyle’s fine art images appears to be composites made up from numerous exposures digitally stitched together, but this is not the case.

“Ninety-five per cent of this image is shot in camera, it isn’t photo-shopped,” he said.

“I call it a reduction technique where I just take little pieces out just to refine, but nearly all of it is achieved in camera and then it's just toning the print.”

The sudden attention has taken the quietly spoken photographer by surprise, with praise coming in internationally from seasoned practitioners across the photography and arts scenes . 

“I didn’t think it [the style] was anything new, but I’ve had masters of photography just go ‘we don't see this’ so that’s been exciting for them, and for me gratifying that an experiment has brought something new to the table,” he said.

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