Chris Gooden and the crew at Seddon Deadly Sins have very kindly given me some wall space for five of my urban fragments images. They are nicely framed and for sale.
If you find yourself in Melbourne’s west, drop into Seddon Deadly Sins (148 Victoria Street, Seddon) have a coffee and try some of the excellent food. Say hello to Chris and the gang and have a look at the prints on the wall.
One of the places I return to when in the north of Iceland, is the old Herring factory at Hjalteyri. Hjalteyri is a small fishing village with currently less than 50 full time inhabitants. It is on the edge of the Eyjafjörður fjord not far from Akureyri.
The factory processed herring into fish meal and fish oil. It was built just before World War 11 and closed in 1966. The old concrete tanks, decaying walls and fading blue trim make it a rewarding place to photograph.
In June I took a road trip to the Yorke Peninsula in South Australia. This was part holiday and part hunting for images to round out my next exhibition.
The Yorke Peninsula has a unique character in South Australia. It has rich farmland, many small ports from which grain was shipped and in the north some serious mining, mostly copper.
A lot of the settlers and miners came from Cornwall and Wales, cornish pasties are the local cuisine. Just kidding. The landscape is littered with derelict stone cottages and the towns have a unique character.
Just recently I was saddened to read of the death of Canadian photographer Michael Reichmann. I had been a regular reader of Michael’s website, Luminous Landscape, practically since the beginning. LuLa became a daily must-read as I wondered about switching from film to digital photography. It was a daunting prospect, there seemed to be a huge amount of new techniques and information to master. And being a darkroom person, making prints was a must, so there was the whole other topic of inkjet printing.
At that time around 2000 – 2001, digital photography and printing were in their infancy and Luminous Landscape was one of the major forums for discussing this new technology and how to get the most out of it. A major debate raged: Will digital photography ever be as good as film.
In May 2002, Michael wrote in one of several reviews of the Canon D60 dSLR:
“35mm Photographers: If you’ve been waiting to make the move to digital but haven’t felt that the cost / quality / image size equation worked for you yet‚ well, I think the time has come…”
And with that, the decision was made. I purchased a Canon D60 from Michael’s Camera store in Melbourne shortly after and began the long process of learning digital photography and inkjet printing.
Michael excelled at giving other photographers space on his website. Through Luminous Landscape I ‘met’ other photographers who have helped me with advice or timely information or just entertained me through the years; Mike Johnston of The Online Photographer, master printer Ctein, Jeff Schewe and Melbourne photographer Joshua Holko. All have played a part in my development as a photographer and printer.
In March 2008 Michael visited Melbourne. I was privileged to meet him in person, shake his hand and thank him for all of the free information and advice he made available through Luminous Landscape.
Rest in peace Michael, you are one of the greats.
My exhibition of images taken at Jokulsarlon, the Ice Lagoon, in Iceland is over.
The prints have been removed from the walls and the Point Cook public art space has been handed over to a new artist. All the purchased images have been delivered and the rest put away.
Thanks to all who came to see my prints and a big thanks to those who purchased one. I sold 19 prints making it my most successful exhibition ever. And I am now in the Wyndham permanent collection and the Encore Events Centre art collection.
A very special thanks to Megan Evans and Nicholas Boseley for their advice, encouragement and support. Wyndham City provides a lot of resources to support local artists and thanks to all in the Wyndham arts projects team for the great work that you do to make Wyndham an artist friendly place.
Just outside of my home town Geelong, there is an area called The Dog Rocks. This area has been a great favourite with local photographers, such as Laurie Wilson and his beautiful monochrome Dog Rocks series held at the National Gallery of Victoria. The last time I photographed there was at least 35 years ago.
Just recently long-time friend Phil Thomson asked me to join him there for a sunset photo walk. The first thing that struck me is how close housing has encroached on this area that I remember being out in the country. Fortunately the top of the hill has been preserved.
I enjoyed wandering about the rocks and photographing the old trees again as the light faded. So much so that I returned during the day to see just how different the images would be.
My next exhibition features images taken at Jokulsarlon, Iceland over several visits. The prints will be available for sale in editions of 5 only. Each one will be matted, signed, dated and numbered.
Jokulsarlon is a glacial lagoon on the south coast of Iceland. It is formed by ice breaking off the Breidamerkurjokull in the Vatnajokull National Park.
The ice floats out to sea through a narrow channel and is often washed back onto the black lava sand beach by tides and storms.
This area is frequently battered by wind and heavy rain and received a lot of ash and dust from the 2010 eruption.
The images in this exhibition were taken over several visits: never in good weather. They are my interpretation of the wild beauty in this ever-changing landscape of rock and ice.
If you are in the vicinity of Point Cook, please drop in. My thanks to the people at Wyndham Art Spaces for this opportunity.
Yes, the good folks at Wyndham Art Spaces have offered me another exhibition to be held in February 2016.
The exhibition will feature images I have taken at Jokulsarlon, the Ice Lagoon, Iceland during several visits. The images will be A2 inkjet prints (printed by me on Canson Baryta Photographique), and they will be for sale.
Thanks very much to Nicholas Boseley and the art team at the City of Wyndham for the encouragement and opportunity. This is a great community initiative to support local artists.
This is a sample image from the set that will be in the exhibition.
From time to time I go back through my store of images; looking for usable ones I missed the first time, or ones that I can extract more from due to new tools, more knowledge or just a different idea.
Recently I revisited images I took in the South Australian town of Marree during a trip in 2012.
At the time I was after a strong evening summer sun look, but wasn’t very happy with the colour in the shots. I have revisited them with new tools and some different techniques and managed to get them to be much closer to what I envisaged at the time.
Don’t forget to go back through your archives to find the hidden gems.
On a recent trip to the town of Wangaratta in the north of Victoria, Australia, I walked down Victoria Parade, a narrow street near the centre of town.
It was late morning on a bright, sunny day and the shadows really stood out on the blue wall. As usual I had my walking around camera, the Olympus E-M5 with the 12-40mm lens.
