Statement
Hermela Bealfan sheds tears as she lies prostrate for eight minutes and 46 seconds - the time it took for a police officer to kill black man George Floyd by kneeling on his neck. Hermela - a US citizen with a mask to protect against the Covid-19 pandemic - was amongst protestors at a ‘Black Lives Matter’ protest in Cairns. Floyd's death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer sparked massive demonstrations across America and the World. The Cairns event also highlighted the hideous numbers of Australian indigenous ‘deaths in custody’ - 432 since 1991.
Born in the UK I’ve been a media photographer for several decades. My career as a photographer in the media commenced whilst covering sport (principally, but not only, football … the round ball World game )… when I was a teenager. In my early twenties (in the ’70s) I moved to Australia and since then I have been freelancing as a media photographer/photojournalist and providing work to the wires, newspaper and magazine publications in Australia and around the planet.