Shortly after joining Ipernity, I came across a very talented photographer from Iceland: Ragnheidur.
Her image collection included stunning images of the Icelandic scenery, mountains, desolate coastline, windswept plains. The images were often dark and made with very long exposures, giving them an eerie almost ghostly feel.
Frankly I was extremely jealous of her talent, her images and the amazing country she had to work with. I wished I had dramatic, harsh scenery like that to photograph, instead of the boring normal scenery around me.
Then I started thinking: “I do live in a country with harsh scenery, it’s just different”. I began to take notice of what was special about our Australian landscape. It is a harsh dry flat place for most of the state of Victoria. In the wheatlands north of Horsham, the horizon looks as if it has been drawn with a straightedge. The interest is in the texture, colour and light. In the late afternoon the wheat stubble glows gold and the clouds take on a mauve tint.
I began to drive into areas I once bypassed as being totally without photographic interest and I began exploring what is there. I am slowly building a set of images of the Australian landscape the way I see it.
My images don’t look anything like the ones Ragnheidur takes, but it is thanks to her that I am now seeing my own landscape. Thanks Ragga.
Edit September 2010
In June 2010 I spent 2 weeks in Iceland and got to meet Ragga and thank her in person.
I am so glad I had those influence on you Rob – makes me very happy and sure you do live in an amazingly beautiful country!! Your images are beautiful and keep getting better… I marked this page and will visit often… Good luck :o)
The australian landscape is something else.. similar to Iceland in its harshness. I never really gave much of a look at the australian landscape until I went to Europe, when I returned I saw australia as being un mistakably australian… the light the colours. I now see the australian landscape so differently and love the thousand shades of brown.
I used to always be looking for a “pretty” landscape to photograph. For years I was influenced by the European and American landscape photography I saw. I thought our landscape was uninteresting and lacking in good photo opportunities. Then I realised I just had to change the way I thought about it. Now I incorporate dead trees, fences and power lines into the images. That is our landscape and it is subtle. It rewards the person who looks and pays attention to it.
And you’re doing a great job at it Rob. Your Australian photos really capture a sense of desolation, dryness, space and sometimes paradoxically life.
Thanks Stuart. I have tried to show the flat dry land the way it appears to me. It isn’t a ‘pretty’ landscape in the traditional sense, but it is fascinating to photograph.