Aboriginal art at Quairading Railway Station, Western Australia. Sony A7r with Olympus OM Zuiko 24mm f2.8 lens. Exposure 1/4000 f8 ISO 400.
Situated 166 Km (or 103 miles for the imperially minded) east of Perth is the small Wheatbelt town of Quairading. If you can’t pronounce it you’re not a local! Really it is just a blip on the map, one of countless small Australian country towns. Gazetted in 1907 the town was built around the rail terminus. Typical of many Wheatbelt towns is the CBH grain handling facility built near the station to ship the crop out at harvest time. The railway line has since closed and the grain moved by road. For many towns this would possibly be the last straw, but Quairading carries on. As you drive into town you are met
The land around Quairading was cleared for farming and in 1932 two grain elevators were built and wheat from the district was transported via rail. The railway shut in 2013 and now the grain travels by road. Canon EOS 550d with Sigma 17-50mm f2.8 OS EX lens. Exposure: 1/100, f8, at ISO 400.
by members of the grain family – cartoon characters based on grains of wheat created by local artist Lyn Whyte. Some of the businesses in the town centre shut down long ago but their buildings have been repurposed. The old bank is now someone’s home and has been called the Brass Razoo Bank, which is Australian slang for having no money and is kind of appropriate.
Wesley Wheat a member of the Grain Family. He and his siblings Basil Barley, Ollie Oat and Lucy Lupin are the concept of local artist Lyn Whyte, the family can be seen in quite a few locations around the Quairading district.
One of the old shops has a huge street frontage and this now houses a collection of cars straight out of the 1970’s. Just a few doors down is the antique/collectables shop whose contents spill out onto the pavement. The items displayed are often arranged in odd juxtapositions which often cause passers-by to do a double take to see what is going on.
Flowers of Quairading. A street side shop display from the antique shop in Quairading. Sony A7r with Voigtlander 15mm f4.5 Super Wide – Heliar. Exposure: 1/5000 sec, f16 at ISO 6400.
The Car Dealership From The 1970’s. Sony A7r with Olympus OM Zuiko 24mm f2.8 lens. Exposure: 1/200 sec, f16, ISO 1600.
An old Mercedes truck sits in a paddock slowly rusting. Quairading, Western Australia. Sony A7r with Voigtlander 75mm f2.5 Color-Heliar lens. Exposure: 1/4000, f2.5 at ISO 400.
The Anzac memorial in Quairading. Western Australia. Sony A7r with Voigtlander 15mm f4.5 Super Wide – Heliar lens. Exposure: 1/250 sec, f16 at ISO 1600.
The real highlight is the people – friendly, upbeat and generous. My partner walked into the local tourist office cum art centre cum civic museum and walked out with a free pumpkin. What more could you want?
Park Beach at sunset. Tasmania, Australia. Olympus Pen EP-5 with OLYMPUS M.40-150mm F4.0-5.6 R lens, and Cokin 3 stop ND filter and 2 stop neutral grad. Exposure: 3.2 s at f/16.0 ISO 200.
Moonrise over Carlton Beach. Tasmania, Australia. Olympus Pen EP-5 with OLYMPUS M.12-50mm F3.5-6.3 lens. Exposure: 8.0 s at f/5.6 ISO 200.Silver Falls on Mount Wellington. Hobart, Tasmania. Olympus Pen EP-5 with OLYMPUS M.12-50mm F3.5-6.3 lens. Cokin filters – 3 stop ND and circular polarizing filter. Exposure: 10.0 s at f/8.0 ISO 200.
The Tessellated Pavement that is found at Lufra, Eaglehawk Neck on the Tasman Peninsula of Tasmania. Canon EOS5d with EF28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM lens. Cokin filters – 3 stop ND filter, 2 stop grad, and circular polarizing filter. Exposure: 1.6 s at f/11.0 ISO 100.
After my post on familiarity and Chichester Cathedral I got a few comments about the use of Cokin Filters and after answering them I thought it would be fun to dig them out again and shoot some landscapes. There’s no HDR or tone mapping each photo is the result of a single exposure. Processed in Adobe Lightroom 5 and Alien Skin Exposure 3 to simulate Fuji Velvia 50.
…keep on turning neon burning up above
And I’m just high on the world
Come on and take a low ride with me girl
On the tunnel of love”
The Big Wheel
More old school photography. Pentax 645IIn with Pentax 45-85mm f4 lens and Fujicolor 160s colour negative film.
The title of the post is part of the lyrics to the Dire Straits hit song “Tunnel of Love” released in 1980 on the Making Movies album which was a particular favourite of mine back then and still gets played now.
I know I’ve said in the past that I’m not a great fan of MONA but just lately I’ve been going up there a bit because I’ve signed up to study a unit in Art Theory at University of Tasmania (UTas). I got up extra early to see an installation by American artist James Turrell called Amarna. There’s not a lot I can say about this work except that it is gob smackingly beautiful and very serene.
Here are a few stills.
Wim Delvoye’s Seventeenth Century Flemish Baroque style.Truck and James Turrell’s Amarna at dawn. MONA, Hobart, Tasmania.Amarna At DawnJames Turrell’s Amarna at dawn. MONA, Hobart, Tasmania.
Technical notes: the time-lapse sequence was made with a Sony ActionCam HDR AS20. The stills were shot using an Olympus OMD EM-10 with either an Olympus mZuiko 17mm f2.8 or an Olympus mZuiko 25mm f1.8 lens.
Sitting in the car this morning waiting for the rain stop I was thinking about it being New Year and what sort of resolution or revolution I could implement for 2015. Fittingly the radio station I was tuned into played “New Year’s Day” by U2 and then “All I Wanna Do” by Cheryl Crow**. I have reached something of a crossroads*** as a photographer (doing well so far first paragraph and already three song titles referenced) – the choices are do I still remain committed to printing and showing my work that way or do I just output for the web and e-books?
The rain finally slows down enough so I can head out onto the dog exercise area on Okine’s Beach, Dodge’s Ferry.
For me as a photographer and writer I want my ideas and images to be seen by as many people as possible and along with the process of creating that really floats my boat. If I just rely on exhibitions at best all I got was maybe a couple of hundred people look at the work. That’s a lot of effort and expense for for just so few hits (to use the web parlance). Having said that I really enjoy making prints – it was after all how I started in photography disappearing into the bathroom at night to process film and print. I found the process terribly exciting and rather magical. Fast forward a bit and an assignment that took me to Russia to shoot a bag full of Tri-X and when I got back home I processed the film and printed the proofs for the client. Later I got to see photos printed really big used at the launch of a human rights campaign. It was then that I realised the power of photography and the impact of a large print. I was hooked. Some twelve years later I got my first computer and started to play about with digital photography, desktop publishing and the internet. The world had shifted on its axis and now nearly twenty years later I’m doing stuff and reaching a what to me is a large very diverse audience. WordPress sent me an email the other day that gave a breakdown of the visitors to this blog, basically where they’re from and how they got here. While the majority of the readers are from the USA, England and Australia I get a surprising number from Russia, Central Asia, and the Latin American countries. The downside is that digital has made me a very lazy photographer and I’m loosing touch with what I’d call the craft of photography and I find that rather sad. I’ll explain that. It is sad because over the thirty years I’ve been pressing the shutter button I’ve accumulated an awful amount of knowledge – reciprocity failure, the Scheimpflug principle, push processing etc etc – and that hard-won knowledge is not being used anymore.
Washed up tree trunk. Okines Beach, Tasmania.
I’ve got no easy answers. Maybe I’ll continue with being both. Perhaps for most of the week I’ll be a modern all digital content creator, and then for a day or so get back to the craft and keep in touch with my roots. I could even shoot a roll or two of film (I found a container full of unexposed film in the freezer and an ever larger container of exposed film). The photos accompanying today’s post are really nothing to do with today’s subject and were made in an “old skool” way. Well old school circa 2005 and that is positively ancient in digital terms. They were made with my Canon EOS5d – the original 5d – and a canon 50mm f1.8 MkII (the plastic one not the original metal mount one). I have an embarrassingly large inventory of Canon bodies and lenses that sit around unused now I’ve gone to m4/3s. So my feelings of guilt compelled me to get a camera out of the cupboard and shoot some black and white photos just for the heck of it.
* New Year’s Day by U2. Another memorable concert at the Portsmouth Guildhall from the days when Bono was not considered an annoying twat.
** Sheryl Crow is an artist I’ve really got into, but an old friend of mine got the album when it first came out and every time I went round to her house she have this playing full-bore while she danced and sang along so I always associate it with her and that particular summer.
*** I first became aware of Elmore James after watching The Blues Brothers, and while I prefer the album “The Sky Is Crying” this track is an all time classic and has been covered by loads of people, but the original is still the best.
And now a short break from our regular programming.
The refugee issue here in Australia is a highly emotionally charged one. So much so that both major political parties pander to the public’s xenophobia and racism rather than meet their international legal obligations. While Australia likes to present itself as an easy-going multi-racial society it is reality far from it. The country has an appalling record when it comes to institutional racism. Our country still sees the aboriginal peoples as second class citizens, and although under Prime Minister Kevin Rudd the government issued an apology for past wrongs still effectively has a defacto form of apartheid that keeps aboriginal people in crushing poverty that directly reduces their life expectancy and sees them in virtual continual conflict with the legal system. Many Australians would emphatically deny this and say that using names like boong, nigger, blacks and gins are just good-natured fun. In fact our new government led by Prime Minister Tony Abbott is in the process of altering the Racial Discrimination Act so that it is perfectly legal be a racist bigot and engage in racial vilification. If it waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck then it must be a duck. Australia talks like a racist and behaves like one, so Australia must be a racist country.
So we come to the issue of asylum seekers and refugees. For as long as I’ve been in Australia the issue has been the major focus of every election. Politicians from all sides have incited intolerance, racism and hatred against anyone who comes to Australia seeking asylum. Refugees are seen as being morally deficient, as though what they are doing is somehow “un-Australian” and should therefore be punished. And punished they are, for if they are fortunate to survive the tribulations of getting to Australia to ask for asylum the government imposes upon them mandatory indefinite detention in off shore Australian camps. When visiting one of these camps ABC correspondent Liam Fox found the conditions very confronting. Life is brutal in the camps and many of the detainees develop severe psychiatric conditions as a result which cause significant numbers to commit suicide and para-suicide.There have been well documented cases where staff from the private security companies administering the camps have physically and sexually assaulted detainees. On 17th February 2014 this culminated in the murder of Reza Barati, an Iranian asylum seeking being held at Manus Island in Papua New Guinea in an Australian off shore facility. Initially the government’s response was that Barati had brought this on himself by seeking asylum in Australia. Since then there has been silence with the issue being swept under the carpet by both the Australia and Papuan governments for the sake of political expediency. Tony Abbot’s government has made the issue of asylum seekers a matter state security and says that it is not in Australia’s best interests to inform its citizens of what it is doing in their name. Effectively Reza Bararti was killed by the Australian state as a direct result of current government policy, and because that policy is now out sourced to a company that has a long international history of abusing and violating those who are put in its care.
Mr Abbot believes whole heartedly that he and his government are acting in accordance with Australia’s wishes and that he has a mandate to deny asylum seekers of their civil liberties, human and legal rights. He maintains that racism is not the motivator, but every year hundreds of Europeans and Americans overstay their tourist visas to live here. If caught they are processed in a facility in a major city rather than be sent off shore. If you are white you get to present your case to stay, if not you get shipped out to Manus or some other off shore camp and detained indefinitely.
Mr Abbot when elected some six months ago said he would govern for all Australians. Well on Palm Sunday this year in the state capitals thousands of ordinary Australians from all walks of life said “Not In My Name”. In a loud clear voice they said that they wanted this policy to end and justice be done.
Bad Parking Or Work Of Art.Swiss artist Roman Signer slammed a car into converging concrete walls in the MONA Car Park.
Hello everyone, I’ve just got back from a very enjoyable trip to “The Apple Isle” or Tasmania as it is properly known. The trip wasn’t all beer and skittles as we had some business to attend to in Hobart, but while we were there we did manage to slip in some fine eating and a visit to MONA.
Gothic Truck. Wim Delvoye creates oversized laser-cut steel sculptures of objects typically found in construction in seventeenth-century Flemish Baroque style. MONA, Hobart, Tasmania.
The Museum of Old and New Art, to give it its full name is the largest privately funded museum in Australia and houses David Walsh’s art collection. Like MONA, Walsh is a polarizing figure – you either like him or you don’t there is no middle ground. Even his bio on the MONA website describes as being “a prick because he like it”. According to The Age he is Hobart’s most infamous son making his fortune off of gambling systems and card counting in casinos, and then apart from the paltry $32 million AUD owed to the Australia Tax Office used it to build the museum ($75 million) and buy his art collection ($100 million). To get an idea of what he is about Walsh recently MC’d his own wedding and out dressed the bride and his parking space at MONA is labelled “God’s”. The words vanity and control certainly spring to mind.
Heading towards the entrance of MONA. Hobart, Tasmania.
MONA is much hyped in Tasmania and indeed Australia, in fact so much so you’d be forgiven for thinking that there is nothing else. When you arrive there you realise that it is much, much more than just an art museum. It is a vineyard, a micro brewery (I’m very partial to the Moo Brew Pils so I’m not all anti Walsh), an upmarket resort, restaurant, event space and gallery. As you go through the mirrored entrance and descend into its deep dark depths it feels like you are entering a Bond villain’s secret lair. When I got to the bottom I fully expected to be met by a pudgy bald man in a grey Mao suit sitting in a swivel chair and fondling a siamese cat. It was a bit of an anti-climax not to be. There are some nice pieces of art in Walsh’s collection, I’m particularly drawn to the works by Australian artist Tracy Moffatt and South African Roger Ballen, but (and there always is a BUT) the overall the impression given is that a huge wedge of cash was given to an adolescent with which to indulge his puerile imagination. The central theme is that of sex and death and the collection relies heavily on shock value rather than other form of merit. Walsh obviously sees himself as a provocateur and impresario in the mould of Malcolm McLaren, but all that was done over thirty years ago and so Walsh’s attempt seems like a limp lettuce sitting in a supermarket cool shelf after a long hot day – in other words past its expiry date.
Interacting with the exhibits. MONA, Hobart, Tasmania.
Perhaps I’m being a little disingenuous and a tad cynical, but I came away thinking that perhaps the real art at MONA is the marketing and relieving the punters of their cash, which would make all rather ingenious. Maybe Walsh is a Bond villain after all. For me the most enjoyable part of the whole MONA experience was watching how the visitors interacted with the exhibits.
Sand Buddha.
Hold That Pose. Wim Delvoye’s gothic chapel, MONA, Hobart, Tasmania.
Looking Up. Interacting with the exhibits. Wim Delvoye’s gothic chapel, MONA, Hobart, Tasmania.
Night time at the old York drive in movie theatre. Canon EOS 5D with Canon EF20mm f/2.8 USM. Exposure 64.0 s at f/4.0 ISO 800.
Apologies to the late, great JJ Cale, who wrote the absolutely sublime song “After Midnight”, but I have been prowling around after dark with my camera and tripod. Every summer I do this because endless blue skies and fields of sun bleached wheat stubble do not make for very interesting photographs. Shooting at night can make the mundane look strangely beautiful and ethereal.
CBH Nocturne, York, Western Australia. Canon EOS 550D & Sigma 17-50mm f2.8 OS EX. Exposure; manual mode 30.0 s at f/4.0 ISO 3200.
Most of the time the images are straight, i.e. I just set the camera up on my tripod and make an exposure, like the two images above. Sometimes I like to play a little with light painting and flash to make something a little more out there.
In the wreckers yard at night. York, Western Australia. Canon EOS 5D, Canon EF24mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 550EX Speedlite and Canon 430EX Speedlite . Exposure: manual mode 30.0 s at f/2.8 ISO 400.
This image and the one below used flash with gels attached and fired by a set of el cheap “Poverty Wizards” I bought off of Ebay. I keep meaning to get a couple more old manual speedlites and some more wireless receivers to achieve more complicated lighting effects, but what usually happens is that summer ends and I stop going out at night and I quickly forget about it. Maybe this year.
Toxic Waste. Something’s happening in York’s drains!!! York Western Australia. Canon EOS5d with EF20mm f/2.8 USM lens, 430EX Speedlite, and 550EX Speedlite. Exposure 251.0 s at f/5.6 ISO 400.
What makes this fun is that it is experimental, you’re never completely sure how the image is going to turn out. Also with exposures knocking around 30 to 240 seconds it is a slow process and that makes it a more thoughtful exercise as it is not just a case of blazing away and hoping. I find because it can take up to twenty minutes making test exposures and then the final image I become thoughtful about composition. It is not unusual to have been out for a couple of hours and only make four or five images.
As always clicking on an image will take you through to my online gallery.
South Brunny Lighthouse situated on Cape Bruny overlooking Lighthouse Bay. South Brunny National Park, Brunny Island, Tasmania. Olympus Pen EP-2 with 12-50mm lens. HDR panorama made up of 6 images processed in Nik Software HDR pro 2 and Photoshop CS5.
As regular readers will know I went to Tasmania earlier this year and out of all the places visited there Bruny Island really captivated me. I like the whole idea of islands, when things get a stressful with family I often tongue in cheek suggest that perhaps we should emigrate to the Falkland Islands, or even better South Georgia Island. I was brought up in a series of English villages and small country towns so I’m quite drawn to small communities and one of my favourite TV programs as a kid was the French series The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe which was re-aired every summer holidays. You’d watch Robinson at about 10am do something daring or solve some conundrum and then that would be the inspiration to go out all day playing the woods making camps or tree houses. His life was simple and my life at that age was very simple. The theme tune for the show is a classic and it takes me right back to those happy carefree times.
Since then I’ve visited a number of islands some like Santorini and Rottnest are idyllic holiday destinations where you go to relax and unwind. Others like Hayling Island are naff miserable places and I’d never want to visit again. Bruny Island is in a category of its own. It is not beautiful but rather is ruggedly handsome, a robust island off of the coast of Tasmania and only a hop, skip and a jump from Hobart the capital of Tassie. There are towering sea cliffs, rolling hills, rainforest, seemingly an endless number of paradisal beaches and abundant wildlife. I would love one day to spend an extended period of time there – say three to six months – just walking and photographing. I could become a later day photographic Robinson Crusoe.
Alonnah BeachEast Cove JettyBennet’s Wallaby, Adventure Bay, Bruny Island, Tasmania
I suppose that all this a long-winded way of spruiking my latest calendar. So if you happen to know someone who wistfully daydreams about getting away from it all on a small island the this could be the ideal Christmas present for them. Just click on the image and you’ll be taken to my online store.
2014 Bruny Island Calendar
My book Tasmanian Tales is also still available through Blurb.
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