Rally for Concerned Photographers

On Sunday, August 29 I attended a protest rally in Sydney. Nick Rains and Ken Duncan are leaders of a group called Arts Freedom Australia and had approximately 1000 photographers turn up near the Opera House to protest against all the permits, restrictions and general bad attitudes shown towards bone fide photographers by administrators and officials these days.


The weather was great and from the images below you can see it was a friendly affair. There were young and old as well as Peter Harvey from Sixty Minutes. There was the usual collection of protest banners as well as colourful characters. All in all a thought provoking event.


Ken Duncan spoke about Peter Dombrovskis and his photograph Morning Mist, Rock Island Bend, Franklin River. I was surprised to see this image in the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) a couple of hundred metres away from the protest. I popped into Ken's gallery on the way to Darling Harbour and there was a good crowd of people from the rally there. Was this a subtle form of advertising. I must admit that he had really bumped up the saturation in his prints in the gallery.


I was talking to a visitor from Queensland about having to pay National Parks for images that you sell that were taken in them. He asked how would they know they were taken in a National Park. I said that most National Parks people would know most of the features in their parks. Later in MOMA I saw a photograph of an obscure river bend in Tasmania and I could point you to exactly where it was. It was here: Derwent River. I think most people interested in photography remember interesting environments as this was.

Blue Mountains skies

This series of sky images were taken in the Lithgow side of the Blue Mountains during the winter of 2009. It's hard to get a set of fifteen sky images for my website and the only virtual exhibition I have featuring skies is a combination of images taken over four years and two countries. You can see it here:
http://www.tombrown.id.au/eclectic/skies/album/index.html

Reflections

This is a series of images from the Turon and Fish Rivers. Both of these rivers are inland and they don't have a big flow so it's hard to get interesting wide angle shots of them. However getting in close you can get some interesting shots. These images were influenced by my shots of the drip here:
http://www.tombrown.id.au/landscape2/landscape2.html

La Perouse

La Perouse was named after Le Compte de Laperouse, a French explorer who arrived here in 1788. It is located on the northern side of Botany Bay and is a popular picnic spot. My friend Bob Cann's father used to have a snake show there every Sunday afternoon. This series of images were taken in the winter of 2005. I was lucky enough to get some late afternoon light hitting the sandstone and the shipwreck there. I wasn't lucky enough to get 15 shots for Eclectic Exhibitions but at least they will have a home here.

Narooma, NSW South Coast

Narooma is a quiet fishing port on the South Coast. I headed there after seeing an image of Glasshouse Rock in a gallery. Knowing where Glasshouse Rock is and getting there are two different matters. I could get to the next beach up the coast but there was a headland blocking access to the beach and I couldn't find a path. There is a path to the beach behind the cemetery but I only found it by walking the long way around. This is one place that seems to be kept quiet by the locals.

The rocks around Glasshouse Rock have plenty of shape and colour to interest a landscape photographer. I am going down the South Coast in September and will definitely visit Glasshouse Rock again.

The Drip

The Drip Gorge is on the Goulburn River approximately 50 kilometres from Mudgee in NSW. It is known for its moss covered sandstone cliffs which drip water into the river. The area is also being mined for coal and The Drip under pressure from mining development.

I've photographed there several times and two of my virtual galleries are on my web site here:

http://www.tombrown.id.au/landscape2/landscape2.html

This series of shots were influenced by a photography exhibition I saw which featured large B&W prints of similar imagery.

Pools reflections, Central Australia

These images are from Uluru, Kata Tjuta and and Kings Canyon. It is nice to know that there are some permanent water holes in this arid area. Once I noticed the reflections in the water I kept my eye out for more and was lucky enough to find some very interesting images. Central Australia was quite different than what I expected and I had a great time there.

A Poinciana at Whycliffe Well

It could be a Poinciana but that's not the matter. The tree, with its large seed pods, looked very artistic in the early morning sunrise. Though it's not a picture that you would expect to see from Whycliffe Well, the UFO capital of Australia. There is only a camping ground there which has the largest selection of beers in Australia. Maybe that's what accounts for all the UFO sightings. Although with no light pollution, the night sky is amazing, something most city dwellers rarely get to see.