I came across a quote a while ago that I really identified with:
I’ve thought that when people appear in a picture, they automatically are perceived as the subject, irrespective of how they are represented. I wanted the only person in the picture to be the viewer.
It’s attributed to Lewiz Baltz– while I’m not 100% how accurate that is, I certainly take inspiration from his work!
I’ve always debated with myself what my “style” of photography actually is… and landscape seems to suit the best. Sure, you might occasionally find a plant in them, but that’s about as close as I get to the traditional style (or, at least – what I think of when I think of landscape photography). I take photos of walls. Nice ones, admittedly, but walls nonetheless! On a whim last year I decided to enter a competition… and to my extreme surprise I was chosen as runner up – in the landscape category. Below are the six images I chose to submit as my portfolio – they’re officially Runner Up – 2015 Landscape Photographer of the Year. You can see the online post here, and if you happen to get a copy of the February issue of the Australian Photography magazine you’ll find a double page spread with my photos on it. Certainly a pleasant surprise to find that some other people consider my photos to be “landscapes”!
PS – in case you wanted to know why I’m not in the reflection of the mirror, it’s because I’m standing very carefully just out of view… it’s very rarely you’ll find me in a reflection or a shadow, as I try very hard not to!
… click the article to see a larger version of the text.
I don’t know if it is just the glaring sunlight at the moment, but I have so many yellow photos that I could pretty much just do a post completely full of them! Instead, I’ve decided to space them out a bit to give your eyes a rest – they’re quite bright… but I can assure you, nothing compared to real life!
I’ve worked out a way of going through my photos that fixes my sense of being overwhelmed with the sheer number of them, so now as a result I have a lot of them to share. Most of these were taken early in the year… it’s only taken a month and a half to get them up here!
The best days to photograph industrial areas are Sundays and public holidays… that way I’m just about guaranteed no one being around and those horrible questions of what I’m actually doing taking photos of (conveniently) their doors, fire escapes, electrical boxes and any other suspicious thing you can think of! Mind you, I’m sure most of it is in my head, as I’ve only been questioned once in the last 3 years (although it’s possible I run away too quickly for people to catch me?!), and that was by a cleaner. On a Sunday. And once I told him I was taking a photo of the door and that I liked symmetry he proceeded to tell me he liked symmetry as well and to go down and around the next street, he thought I’d like it. My only other “confrontation” was when I was taking photos of someone’s gate and his neighbour rang to tell him… I’d left by then so the owner proceeded to chase me up the hill and want to see my photo. For some reason he seemed quite disappointed that I found his gate interesting.