30/7/08 School of Art ANU to view Parade: Manufacturing Selves in Photography.
These works feature 16 contempoary artist who make portraits and self portraits.
These works are not realy what I enjoy, as the art world is a whole new realm and who have a different way of thinking and capturing there images. Some of these are technically not all that great, and some have you thinking about what the image is supposed to represent. I suppose that is what the ART world wants you to do to keep the viewer guessing.

I did enjoy Marzena Wasikowska work where she has 6 portraits of her son??? portraits from 2004-2008 showing his age from 12 years - 16 years. The aging process is well represented in these portraits ans she pulled it off realy well.

Tina Fivesh 3D portraits where holygram style type images and was interactive with glasses to view them with. Very clever and with the glasses, on they show great detail and almost human like contact.

14/11/08 Selling an American Dream, NMA. Austalia's Greek Cafe's. Wow what a great exhibtition and who remembers these Milk Bars. Placed on nearly every corner shop. A great Australian past time with a great history. This exibition takes us back in time, a place where our child hood was so innocent lol. The greek Cafe helped transform Australia popular culture and this exhibition not only looks at how it was done, but also tells personal stories of those invloved.
A journey back in time with a series of B/W images, and video display. A must see exhibition.

25/6/08 Drill Hall Gallery to view Michele Maurin: Voyages Photographiques, An Ecological Journey. An another instersting look at what the world has to offer us, with french photographer Michele giving us access to images from, New York, Hong Kong, French Polynesia, Ivory Coast and the Amazon. Her use of partial toning, with gold, iron and other metals to penetrate the silver emulsion to bring out a special lighting to her images make it unique.

I found the Ivory Coast and Amzon images in particular similar to the picture paradise images @ from the National Gallery composition and landscape wise.


Also @ the same location I got a look @ Lydia Chevel installation of work covering the theme wIne glasses. Digital photography that evokes excess with a of riot of images and colours.
All the images are out of focus and blurry but great compositions.
Not realy sure what it all means, maybe the abuse of alcohol in Australia society today, particulary the excess the teenagers seem to be drinking it at And maybe Lydia is trying to portray that to us.

12/7/08 After 200 years AIATSIS . Photographic essay of Indigenous Australia.
Something close to my heart and I have been apart of for the past 6 years.
In 1988 2oo years of early coloniaisation, a team of Indigenous and non Indigenous photogaphers where a part of a process to document the lives of Australian Aborginginal and Toress Strait Islanders in their own communities and how they have progress during that time.
My recent employemt with AIATSIS as a photographer has given me the opportunity to visit and hand back these imags that where taken over 20 years ago.

In a recent class, we discussed photography and colonialism and the importance of those Indigenous photographs take over 100 years ago.
Although they where exploited, they are now an important part of history, healing process and story telling.
The after 200 years collection is also is used in the same way to reconnect families and people back together. And over time those early colonialism photographs will be just as important.

11/8/08 Documentary Images by Sarah George and the CSIRO discovery centre. I had the pleasure in photographing the opening of this great exhibition and as a kid read the story/book about the Kakadu Man.
Bill Nedj IDDID DJURA. He had since now passed and Sarah got to document the final 6 years of his life. She tells the story of how she was just passing through the community on a holiday when her and Bills paths crossed. She will be the 1st to admit she had little knowledge of Aboriginal culture, but soon found herself living amongst the community where she was accepted.
Bill Nedji wanted his story told and she just happned to be in the right place @ the right time.
Now she can tell the story of those years in these images where she was aloud to access area's such customs, ceremony's and traditions, as an Aboriginal person I could only dream of being a part of.

For sacred reasons it would be wrong to post Bills image on this blog, but I have posted a picture of Sarah talking at the opening.

13/8/Chris Morrison COMPRESSED. Photo Access Manuka A unique exhibition of over an eight minute widescreen Multimedia Room projection and music track made from 14,000 digital images shot using time lapse photography in Canberra and Sydney. I had the pleasure in studying with Chris and was able to see how he began this journey in 2007. To see the final result was an accomplishment itself.

10/8/08 Joge Deustva, In search of a hero. Showcase Gallery. An interesting look a his work and more the better that he was able to be there, to meet and greet with a rare talk about his photographs.
A collection of Black and White images from his native Peru. I'll have to say it was inpsirational that he was able to tell us he's background and what he's photographs meant.
A Series images of a Journey and there was even Images in a 3d Affect.

The time we lived Dangerously with an interesting look @ people portraits and there guns. Which shows the violent world we live in today.
Another series of photographs shown was the down side of poverty and how people live. This is their environment and although it's not much, it means the world to them and they are happy.
The best Gallery of images I have seen so far.

10/8/08, New Parliment House, Pinhole Camera's. An intersting and intriguging way to look @ photographs. The creativness it brings out from such a simple pinhole solution, will always astound me. Even though pinhole camera ahs been around for a very long time, this is something that is new for me. Like Large Format I would love to explore this type of photography a whole lot more.

Walking under the Land 11/7/08 ANU school of ART . Photographic Exhibition from 4 artist Alex James, Timo Nest, Cathy Laudenbach, Marzena Wasikowska.

Shot with Large Format, Alex James images in particular of long exposurses from the south coast where brilliant. They had a certain calmness about them, and the waters had a misty look about them from the long exposures. Love the Large Format, and would love to exlpore and photograph more in this type of environment.

Visited the CMAG on the 27/8/08 to look at a collection of work from David Warren. Holographic Images which show the continuing issues with the imapact on social interaction. Mobile phones, computers and newtworking. This was something different for me to view and I quite enjoyed seeing images with illusions and 3D affects sequence , Realy eye capturing stuff.

20/8/08 Visited the National Gallery of Australia to view Pitcure Paradise . An exhibition 1st of it kind to survey the history of photography of our region. From India and Sri Lanka, South East and East Asia, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.
This exhibition shows the rich heritage and the many outstanding work of the firts century photography.
I found it hard to view, as the post colonial view on this exhibtition is thrown out the window. I t feels as though the past 2oo years of post colonial has been erased. But the images are a sight to see and the photography tells a great story of the many links from this region. Pioneer Photographers with over 400 originals photo's and albums produced from private and public collections.
The Panoramic view of the Sydney Harbour was a great feature.

17 September 2008, we also managed to visit m16 studio's in kingston to see to 2 other exhibitions.

Hilary Wardhaugh Father and Sons exhibtions and Dan O Day's exhibtion.

I have had the pleasure in being apart of this process as Hilary contacted me to use me and my sons portrait as part of the Father sons and Fathers, a photograpgic history essay by Hilary.

When she asked me, I had no hesitation as it's not every day you get an opportunity as this.

This was the 1st time I got to see the image on show and felt the connections straight away once I saw it.

It works well in a series of other father and son images with a short story from each person.

Please see photo for more info, it may jog you memory.


Dan O days exhibition was also great, with some of his larger format images. The lighting technics used for these images was outstanding. I particularly like all the images he took on his mobile phone of sleeping people in all sort of uncompromising positions. It's amazing what you can create from something so basic ha ha.

Assignment, Platinum Prints.

The Process for Platinum Prints was invented by Williams Willis(1841-1923) in 1872 who continually refined it until 1878. It is made up of a dried peice of paper sensitized with a solution of potassium chloro-platinate and ferric oxolate an iron salt. Which is contact printed under a negative in dalylight until a faint image was produced by the reaction of the light source with the iron salt. This process also depends on the light source of iron salts which is crucial to making it work. The paper was developed by immersion in a solution of potassium oxolate that dissolved out the iron salts and reduced the chloroplatinate salt to platinum in those areas where the exposed irons salts had been. The paper is washed in a series of baths to remove excess iron salts and yellow stains and final the print is washed in water.
With the price of Platinum Prints rising steeply they where made right up to the 1920's. They where replaced by palladium prints a process which is similar but employed a compund of the metal rather that platinum. These processes were valued for there great tonal range, usualy silvery greys.
Recently Platinum prints have enjoyed a revival.

"Looking at Photography" A guide to technical terms by Gordon Baldwin

On the 17/9/08 we made a visit to tha Australian War Memorial to see an eye opening exhibition. Icon and Archive photography and the world wars. A collection of images from the 1st and 2nd world wars. This is a great chapter in Australian History and Australian photography with great portraitures and documentary images. You cant' but help but get taken a back by these images and what these men and women had to go through on an every day basis just to get by.
The commraderi and mateship that you see in some these images is so the" Australian way of life". I look foward to looking into this more in some of our up and coming lessons.
Whilst dere I took the time to look around the AWM to see other area's of interest and was overawed by the enormity of the place. I would love to go behind the scenes and see what takes place to get the AWM that way it is today, This place is an ICON.

On the 10-08 We visited Old Parliment House for an exhibition which deals with the harshness of the land during the drought. Beyond Reasoable drought . Images that evoke Sadness, helpleness, devestation and hope.

The river, lake beds and dams which show the severity of the drought. Among the images was a DVD which displayed the other 149 images that didn't get exhibited. Along with the the DVD was series of stories from the poeple themselves telling stories about life on farms, growing up in small country towns etc.

ALthough I havent lived the life of these guys, I can relate to the harshness they do face and they deserve every accolade that is handed to them. They are unsung hero's of this nation.



Please refer to my images from the Condobolin area which is affected by drought.
An image with me at the Condobolin lake and another imaged of the Coogee river on the Lachlan. A place where I used to swim very often when I was a kid. But it's looking very DRY.

2/9/08 I traveled to Brewarrina NSW to document and photograph NSW Records , who where holding an exhibition with photographs at the Cultural Centre. This exhibition is on show for the next month and it coincided with the re-opening of the cultural center.
NSW records are traveling through out NSW to exhibit and return the material to the poeple. Bre was there next stop and these Iamges dated back as early as the 1900's and one elder went as far as saying.
"These images engage you, and I felt a presence when looking at photo's of my family members.
I feel there is a family renunion going on when I engage the photo's".
Wow engage, he made me think more about photographs and my photography work and that there is a whole new level when dealing with photographs

Mervyn Bishop who is originaly from Bre, was aslo traveling with NSW records to document this event. This was a great privilage to meet Mervyn, and he took an interest in what I was doing as I have studied and researched his work before.
As you can imagine these images are a part of Australian History and tell great stories of it's past.
More poeple need to be educated with these images and hopefully educations institutes such as CIT's photographic departments can pass these stories on.

"Gurramin Mamarrapa" meaning "Shadow Catcher" After many visit's to Bre, an elder told me a meaning of being a photographer in language. 

27/8/08, Visited the CMAG to view images taken from around the Canberra region.
Images on show are by atrist like Olive Cotton, David Patterson, Arthur Wicks and Matt Kelso. Ted Richards Black and white series of images taken around Canberra in the 1970's early 80's caught my eye. These images captured the essence of what Canberra was like back then. Before it bacame the city we know today.