12.2.06

The best gifts arrive when you least expect them.

prints

I suppose it's no surprise to both my readers that I am participating in a group exhibition this year with 18 other photographers, that I all met online. So on Saturday morning I toyed with the idea of printing some older work shot around Melbourne in the 90's. In particular some areas near the Victoria Markets that no longer exist [the subtext of the show is Melbourne and how we 'interpret' Melbourne]. So I grab the folders containing this work from the late 80's to the early 90's and start flicking though my proofs, looking for a particular shot. After a couple of run throughs and expanding my search I gave up with that idea and found a couple of shots that I'd always liked, but never printed, then lo and behold I realise that both had some strong and similar connections, off I went in search of more of the same. After an hour or so I had over 25 shots that in essence were capable of being an exhibition in their own right. What a marvellous surprise! I then spent the afternoon making work prints on the images. In the process three of them have already bitten the dust, mainly for technical reasons, but it still looks like I've enough for a small show somewhere around town sometime next year. [Next year will be my 20th year of serious photographic study.]

What strikes me the most about this is that these images were never made with this particualr 'idea' in mind. I simply photographed places and areas that I liked then, and still do, then 10 or 12 years later ‘saw’ the connections.

I guess Frederick Sommer was right?

“…art is images you carry. You cannot carry nature with you, but you carry images of nature. When you go out to make a picture you find you are moved by something which is in agreement with an image you already held within yourself”

On a more obtuse note check this site out, it looks at ideas and asks some pretty tough questions.

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