Sandy Scheltema has been recognized as one of Australia’s leading female photojournalists. She has been contributing to various magazines and newspapers since 1981. Scheltema’s extensive repertoire of work has included assignments for the Department of Foreign Affairs, World Vision, The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Conservation Foundation, Associated Press, Reuters, Tourism Victoria, The Australian Wheat Board, Salvation Army, Amnesty International, Greenpeace, The Australian National Academy of Music, The Fred Hollows Foundation, Reconciliation Australia, Victorian National Parks Association and Parks Victoria
Her specialty in documentary photography has meant she has worked on assignments around the world including Indonesia, Samoa, Africa, New Zealand, Canada, USA, Chile, and India and Australia. Her work overseas has seen her photographing subjects such as child soldiers and AIDS orphans in Uganda, child labor in India, poverty in Africa, refugees on the Thai/Burmese border, illegal logging in PNG and sight restoration in Vietnam and the Pacific. She documented the aftermath of the genocide in Rwanda and is currently documenting Life In The Time of Covid.
Scheltema’s work has been published in the following magazines: Time, BRW, Financial Review Magazine, The Good Weekend, Qantas Australian Way, Australian Photographer, Wild, Outdoor, Der Spiegal, Newsweek, Geo and Country Style. It has appeared in newspapers such as The Age, The Sunday Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, Canberra Times, The West Australian, the Boston Globe and Mail, San Francisco Examiner and the New York Times. Her images have been purchased and archived by the National Library and the Victorian State Library.
She has been widely exhibited, including places such as the Powerhouse Museum Sydney, South bank London, and the NSW Art Gallery. Sandy has twice been a finalist in the prestigious Walkley Awards. She was awarded the Quill Award for best Feature photo, the PANPA award (Pacific and Asia Newspaper Award) for best News Photos and was a finalist in the United Nations Peace Awards. Recently one of her images was chosen by the prestigious International Centre of Photography in New York for the Pandemic Project Exhibition.Last year she was a finalist in the National Portrait Gallery 'Living Memory ' Portrait Prize.