Notes / Thoughts from recent research
“In contrast to the United States where photography went hand in hand with the opening up of the American frontier, in Australia it did not.”
From “Invisible Journeys: Exploration and Photography in Australia 1939-1989” Paul Carter
I read this quote from Photography and Australia by Helen Ennis which has provided some necessary grounding in the history, development and context of Australian photography. I can’t elaborate into this line any further since I haven’t read the original essay but it did make me question as to how I can develop the current series. Since I was young and through my teens I’ve looked to the American West for it’s photography and film. And the music. I love it. However, this quote has provided a point of difference. A departure into how to acknowledge that America but while making in nothing but Australian
I just find that that quote adds a line of inquiry and thread into the project that can take it into some interesting paths of research and development, a process into my photographic practice of which I am just getting used to.
In the same chapter Ennis continues:
“A human dimension was ever present; figures were routinely included within the landscape, taking in the view and providing an indication of scale”
Charles Bayliss, Warragamba River, c.1876, albumen photograph
Coincidentally, I shot this two days before reading this chapter, four figures looking at the view, providing scale. However, I did ask them to stand in front of the camera, since they were originally far to the left of the scene.
Oct 17 2020, Kununurra.
Going back to that original quote I have found the essay in a second hand book shop in Perth, which is already in transit.
“Islands in the Stream reflects on traditional views of the local, examining them in the light of the more urbanised and technological aspects of the contemporary Australian context”.
