HEROIC LENSLESSNESS

Helen Garner ‘The Feel of Steel’ 2001: excerpts for ‘Antarctica’ – writings collected by Alasdair McGregor. Can the written word stand up to a flood of photographic record?

“I determined on the spot that I would go to the icy continent in a state of heroic lenslessness; that I would equip myself with only a notebook and pen.”

“I’m lonely because everyone else is hiding behind a camera. Everywhere I turn, my view is blocked by some keen bean with a tripod. I fight the sense that a person with a camera has a prior right to any view we both happen to be looking at. I am being drawn insane by photography.”

INDIGENOUS MOROCCANS

We met this old Berber man in the Middle Atlas Mountains in Morocco, off the beaten track. He and his family of seven take care of livestock and lead the nomadic life, migrating in pursuit of shelter, water and grazing land. Their whole household fits into a cave of two by two metres naturally shaped in an undulating valley where they cook, sleep and store a handful of possessions. It is a hard life and these are hardy people. People who are one with the land.

 Another indigenous Berber group are Touareg people closely associated with Saharan North Africa. Although many of them still pursue a mystic nomadic existence amid sandy hinterlands, some are settled like this Rissani man guarding the history of the Alawite dynasty.

OF SEA AND SAND

THE CITY OF KITES

St. Kilda beach in Melbourne on a windy summer evening.

ONE DAY – FOUR PHOTOS

We spent a weekend early this year at Mornington Peninsula. A friend was staying with us in Melbourne and we wanted to venture out beyond the city. We took many photos on that day, as usual. I had a look at them and chose four that I like, each one for a different reason. I guess the only thing they have in common is that they could be four photos taken on four different days. Instead, they belong to the same memory.

ALL TRAINS CANCELLED

It seems like this whole summer has been about weather anomalies in Australia. Flooding in Queensland, New South Wales and in Victoria, cyclone Yasi, drought and fires in Western Australia and finally Melbourne got its share of natural disasters.

Last Friday, a tropical storm took us all by surprise. Almost everyone had a story to tell. We got trapped in a small restaurant where water started to rise all of sudden and, for a brief moment, it all looked very scary. Cars were drifting on the streets, streets turned into raging rivers, rivers into mighty waterways.

The day after the city suffered from a major hangover. Our local train station in Windsor looked like a canal in Amsterdam and those who expected trains walked away mildly shocked. What really amazed me was the number of people who purposely arrived at the scene equipped with cameras to document the moment in time to remember…

SUNRISE & SUNSET

A true travel photographer does not miss a single sunrise or sunset. Ouch! We have been engaged in classics at Melbourne CBD and here is one of each.

THE CITY OF DOGS 2

Please click here to view our original post: THE CITY OF DOGS 2

BREAKFAST WITH JOHN

5 January 2011, 10am or perhaps a little later. Art Café in Katoomba, Blue Mountains, New South Wales.

We had a lunch there the previous day and decided to come back for breakfast. This is how it happened: an unexpected encounter with John whose photographs hang on the walls of the café. We had a good chat. We had a good time. John offered us a beautifully published book of his poems. And this is one of them:

THE PHOTOGRAPHER 

With a gentle heart

I sit sanguine in the sun

winking waves

bursting

to puncture the stillness

the water’s music

composed

on the script of the tide

 

In the neap

supple swaying algae

calm and sinous

caress sandstone

tumbled to the sea

 

Shaded from the intense light

on a moss covered mound

the camera searches

a frozen moment

the waitingness

delicious with anticipation

 

From a subconscious refuge

mysterious processes of my mind emerge

struggling for rational comprehension

of our anthropocentric universe

 

John Clark

 

 

AUSTRALIAN LANDSCAPE

What is it that makes a quintessential Australian landscape? Perhaps light.

Our image was taken a few weeks ago in Gippsland. We drove past and decided to stop at the very last moment. There was something promising about the monotony of this view, the light and the dual colour palatte. 

A MAN AND HIS DOG

THE WALL 2

TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHY WITH RICHARD I’ANSON

Being a Melburnian comes with certain privileges. One of them is sharing the living space with Lonely Planet’s travel photographer Richard I’Anson. Such proximity means that you can participate in one of his workshops. Richard established Lonely Planet Images in 1998 and has photographed people and places in over 85 countries on all continents.

I’d recommend his workshop to anyone who loves to travel and to photograph but especially to those who contemplate a career in travel photography or, at least, want to become contributors to stock image libraries. Please see Richard’s website for more details.

It was a hot October day in Melbourne. After a morning session we went to photograph iconic Melbourne’s spaces: Federation Square, Hosier Lane, Flinders St. Station, Southbank and the Yarra River. I look at my images and can’t help thinking that Melbourne radiated with super natural vitality on that day: it was bright, energetic, self-confident, loud, alive, happy, and, as always, relaxed.

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THE WALL 1

EARTHWATCH ECUADOR EXPEDITION

Earthwatch has posted on their page a link to our electronic, illustrated diary from an expedition to the Ecuadorian cloud forests in July this year. You can now read it on-line in a comfortable e-book format.

Please click this link to start browsing our presentation: EARTHWATCH ECUADOR EXPEDITION

Please click this link to learn more about the Earthwatch expedition in Ecuador: CLOUD FOREST CANOPIES AND WILDLIFE

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