The Beach in Black and White

This series was shot on a sunny afternoon not far from Anglesea, VIC. A wooden feature designed to keep the hillside from collapsing into the sea (presumably?) cast shadows onto the sand. The intense contrast between light and dark made these images more interesting than the subject alone might have rendered them. In particular, I like the first image and the very pure texture of the sand where overexposure has driven it almost white. The differing surfaces- smooth sand, rough wood- also adds a contrast that reinforces the black/white, natural/man-made themes of opposition.

 

Telegraph Road

Dire Straits (or should I say dIRE sTRAITS) were the first band I really got into.  My best friend from the age of 7 was/is a guy called Andreas, and I have a hunch his older sister listened to them, and he picked them up from her, and I picked them up from him.  For my 10th birthday my parents got me a cassette of their Money for Nothing album (wow… that starts to show my age), and almost every song on the album remains consistently towards the top of my favourite music throughout the years.  Twenty years on (eep) and when I listen to the tracks I still know every pluck of Mark Knopfler’s legendary strings.

One of their most epic performances is the 14+ minute live version of the song Telegraph Road, which plots the foundation, growth and collapse of the American city of Detroit, allegedly inspired by a bus-trip down a section of a major road in the metropolitan area called ‘Telegraph Road’.  It may sound like an odd and somewhat boring premise for a song, but in fact it remains (in my ever so humble opinion) one of the classics of its time, with a melancholic undertone that changes pace as the song progresses and simple but beautifully evocative lyrics.  I never get tired of listening to it.

While someday I probably ought to make a pilgrimage to the real Telegraph Road, I snapped the above shot driving down to Mono Lake (below), where the afternoon sunlight was bathing this telegraph pole in warmth and the blue sky behind was deliciously rich and blue.  The western United States still carry a certain wildness about them that feels closer to those old days of frontier and settlement, a bit like watching an old John Wayne cowyboy movie as the grand landscape unravels around you.  I’m sure there are many better telegraph roads to photograph out there, but so far this has been one of my favourites.  It captured a little something of what I imagine some of those old roads must have looked like, carrying the telegraph lines across that vast old countryside.

I’m still searching…

Celebrating the Mundane

Sometimes the fun is in finding the beauty in plain, every day objects.  Like a wooden birdtable.  This one is in my parents’ garden, taken before Christmas (when things weren’t quite so dry and yellow…).  I really like the streaks of cloud in that rich blue sky, the strong greens, the sharp linear frame of the wooden structure versus the soft vegetation, and the play of afternoon light on the angles.

This was one of the first shots I took with my Canon EOS 5D, that most beautiful of technological creations.  I was getting used to having a DSLR in my hands after nine months of messing around with my trusty but limited Canon Powershot G9.  Shooting full-frame on a wide-angle lens is something special- I’ve got some posts lined up from my new Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8, which is one spectacular piece of glass.

Sorry I haven’t posted much in the last week or so.  I’ve been working most nights up to 11.30 and later, and things have been a bit hectic.  Hoping that’ll settled down for the next couple of weeks and I’ll try and have some more images up.  I’m still clocking them up faster than I can post, there’s hundreds yet to come…  ;o)