So here we are at the end of another year once more. Looking back over the images I have created in the last twelve months I am pleased with what I have been able to achieve despite mostly staying within Victoria. The urge to explore further afield is certainly strong but with our lad too young for vaccination the risk seems too great should he accompany me, as is often the case. Now on to happier things.
This little collection of work comes from two or three photographic trips in the late winter to early spring of 2021, the first of which saw our boy and I spending a day on Mt Stirling. Having hiked or snow shoed there for several decades I was quite confident in terms of navigating us along the well-marked trails, but laden down with two heavy tripods, multiple cameras, and lenses, as well as water and winter gear for two, my now 50-year-old body was pretty done in by the end of the day. Our lad, of course, was spritely and exuberant the whole time, drawing upon a seemly inexhaustible supply of youthful energy and the general novelty of having snow under his feet.
As Victoria enters lockdown number six, I find myself with enough time to write up the last couple of photography trips, which were embraced with enthusiasm in the days prior to lockdown five, when local travel was permitted. Vaccinated with a double jab of Pfizer, I had a cautious sense of optimism, though every opportunity to avoid people was made – something quite easy to do when the purpose of the trip is to explore remote natural environments.
For me there is no greater pleasure than heading off on a landscape photography trip with plenty of time on our hands. The world seems full of possibilities, as we drive into the night, the road curving into the distance and our headlights leading us away towards a new adventure. Our boy and I talk animatedly of locations, listing the places we’d like to explore, our imaginations describing ever more fantastical lighting and weather conditions. Dark brooding storms, fiery red sunrises, dazzlingly rainbows. The long hours slip by and before we know it we’ve left Victoria behind and ascended into the mountains at the southern end of New South Wales. Finally pulling up to rest beside a high country hut we hunker down, the car, as ever, providing the perfect sleeping quarters.
So the big news for my photography business is that after several years of deliberation, I’ve gone ahead with purchasing the latest digital medium format camera, the Fujifilm GFX 100s. This amazing camera can deliver superb, gallery worthy image quality suitable for massive prints, 60 inches and beyond, in a more traditional aspect ratio that is quite close to square. This won’t mean I’m stepping away from the panoramic format that has consumed my creative endeavours for the last decade or so. I still love the panoramic view. It mimics how we see the world ourselves and shows off Australia’s wide open spaces so well.
With no pandemic restrictions on inter-state travel we could have spread our wings a bit these last few months. Whether it was a health thing or a fear of last-minute rule changes requiring expensive quarantining, it just did not happen. In any case, staying local within Victoria yet again, produced some great photographic opportunities.
The headline act of this little ensemble of images, would have to that of Cape Liptrap Lighthouse. I first visited this location two or three years ago and was immediately enamoured with the photographic potential of the tiny lighthouse against the huge, bleak cliffs and remote coastline. In my mind the scene promised to be epic, but every attempt I made was met with frustration, primarily from near constant and ridiculously fierce winds in combination with a lack of suitable clouds.
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