Everyones Best Friend

I have a friend who loves dogs. She fosters neglected dogs at her home and when a new owner comes along, with a tear in her eye she farewells her four legged friend. She does this selflessly and totally out of love for an often forgotten minority.

Spending more and more time making images on the coast, particularly around the ocean baths of Newcastle I started to pick up on the number of dogs that were out taking people for a walk. Starting to watch the dogs as they passed I realised that they were already sussing me.

I began to note that there was a fearless eye contact being made by almost every dog I passed. Whereas it's often difficult to engage a fellow human eye to eye, the humble K9 is totally up for it. As the human cruises coolly by, trailing haplessly behind and sticking to the correct side of the path, the dog is making full eye contact as it passes by. It's almost a staring contest, and they never blink first.

I decided to start responding to their gaze and snap some images. They are truly the perfect subject. Completely relaxed under the stare of the lens. Humble and unselfconscious. Full of emotional responses and comfortable with the display of any emotion they happen to be feeling from moment to moment, love or rage, joy or sorrow.

More than a Day at the Beach

More than a day, more than a beach. This has been brewing like the churning ocean from the day I picked up my fathers old Yashica twin lens. I'm back here again and here I will stay.

Carved in Stone and Stuff

There was no limit to the beautiful things we found during our travels in Japan. I think that everything of beauty had the intent at it's heart to be something of beauty.
It was not necessary to go to a gallery to find art. Is it ever?

(Hey and please don't get me wrong and think I am comparing a Japanese art gallery to a toire, I'm just saying that art is where you find it)

Unburied Treasure

Some treasures I found on the way to the beach today. Beautiful day, blue sky, shining sun, glistening water, pair of underpants, crushed can, burnt out car, general household rubbish.

Thanks for providing me with a surplus of interesting things to photograph with new camera, new lens (though not really mine) and new attitude to the whole photography thing.

Digging in for the long haul now...

Off the Beaten Track

Actually you can't imagine a landscape any more beaten than this one. A bit further south from where I have been walking and into the Wyong Shire. I walked into this area on a fire trail with the usual accompanying debris by the side. Washing machines, wheel rims, bottles, paint cans etc. If it can rust or shatter you'll find it in the bush in profusion. Oh and it helps if it is not particularly damaged by fire like the rest of the environment. Even the dumped bundles of newspapers haven't burnt, while all around them is ash.

After walking for a distance I leave the track, something now possible since the fire came through. It's beautiful and liberating to walk through the trees and really feel the slope and curve of the land. None of the pungent prick, the stab and scratch, the spiny barrier the bush usually provides to block free access - there is no bush. The only impediment to my progress across the land is the frequent fallen tree and these are easily circumnavigated.

The thing I begin to notice after a while is an absence of the usual detritus. No rubbish anywhere. In general I cant avoid the rusted metal and broken bottles that litter the landscape. Now I've started to look for it and to my astonishment I find nothing. No rotor from a washing machine. No rusting car body. No soft drink can or bottle top. It's extraordinary and it feels very odd after all I've seen in the past weeks (and years).

The conclusion: no tracks into the bush = no dumping of rubbish. Simple.

I believe I have discovered an area free and clear of any human interactivity. I believe, in a haze of fantasy, that I have stumbled into some sort of bushy paradise. Has any fellow human set foot here before. Am I the first upright walking biped to navigate this zone. All evidence points in that direction. I revel in these notions for a time as I enjoy this experience. It does feels like as though I am an explorer. And perhaps I am one of the first to see the landscape here in this way at this time.

The bush at the moment, may not have the natural beauty we usually associate with our natural environment, but right now is an extraordinary time to go into the bush for a walk.

Odd Man Out

It may appear at first glance that there is indeed an odd "man" out here, but in fact it is not as obvious as you may at first think. Of course it is the darker tree with the blackened bark. Severely burnt to a char. Or is it the tree with the blackened crevice on the side which seems to indicate a hollow. This tree has actually been burnt out completely through its centre. There is nothing but an empty shell, but this tree will continue to grow and thrive in it's own way.

Is the odd tree the third image? They are not all gum trees. This third tree is an Angophora and not a member of the Eucalyptus family at all. These beautiful trees look similar to the gum trees common to the Australian bush. They also share the same habitats as many of the Eucalypts, but on closer inspection they are not in the same botanical classification.

Perhaps the fourth tree is the odd tree out due to the particularly beautiful patterning of the bark. I believe this is a Scribbly gum, it is a member of the Eucalyptus family. It is an outstandingly beautiful tree and shares habitat with all of these other specimens.

If you picked the last of the images then by my classification you would be correct. This tree tree is an outstanding specimen, it has beautifully textured and patterned bark, it has been burnt by the fire but not in an area visible in the image. It is actually an Angophora as well.

No this tree is different to all of the others because it is no longer a living specimen. The fire had gotten into the tree at the base and burnt out the roots, They were still smouldering the day I made this image, some two weeks after the fire had passed through. The tree in the last image is lying on it's side, burnt off at the base. The roots have a reasonable chance of surviving and regrowing a new multiple trunked tree, but this trunk and branches will return to the earth from which they came.

Sad yet still a beautiful and magnificent tree.

 

I pissed on a burning log today

Every day since the fire I have walked in the once familiar bush behind my home and in the surrounding area. There has been no time since I began walking here that I have had this feeling of discovering something new every single day. There is so much that I have never seen before and may never see again. Each day, even each moment, the landscape through which I traverse is different.

It surprises me the resilience of this fire. We were evacuated two weeks ago tonight. The fire burnt through, the flames went away, the RFS mopped up, the days have cooled down, a heavy rain storm hit the area... Every day when I walk in the bush, I find many smouldering tree trunks, red hot coals, wafts of smoke through the once solid and impenetrable bush.

I pissed on a burning log today, as I do everyday. I only wish I had more to give.

3 Nights in a Tent

Back home again to the south coast between Sydney and Wollongong. I've written before about distinctly difficult and memorable camping trips. About fears and dangers in the Royal National Park. About that precarious cliff-side drive north from Wollongong. This was the special occasion route on the way to or from the fortnightly visit to my grandmothers home in Wollongong.

Not sure what brought about any of these special occasions, beauty, boredom or belligerence. I've always liked the south coast's rugged and precarious landscape. Coal peeped through the cliff face along which we drove and collected in our swimmers in the surf of many of the beaches. Back to the unscathed small towns I have again started to trek with my girls. This is the simple life.

Three nights in a tent. iPods blazing through the night. Wind blowing non stop. Icy waters and the constant half glimpse of that elusive shark, dolphin or whales fin amongst the white water between sand and horizon. These images collected on the recent visit a fellow image maker alongside, and a sculpture on an early morning walk with the youngster.

Stripes

Praise be to my beautiful, generous daughter again for stepping up to the plate and modelling for me. New stripey trousers and a sense of duty work wonders with this lovely girl.

Thanks you x

Urban Features

It feels as though I've started collecting new things. But I haven't. I've just noticed that I've been collecting these things all of this time, and just not realised. I've called these things 'urban features' because that's what they are. They are the furniture (literally sometimes) that we live with.

I continue to watch the world around me, and I was going to say, crumble away. I don't mean that as a bad thing. Another quote from a young Woody Allen, "I read in the paper that all matter is decaying" Young Woody was trying to use this as an excuse not to do his homework, "What's the point" (Annie Hall)

It's interesting the amount of things that people want and then don't want. The cycle of life and death, decay and recomposition. The things I am drawn to are myriad. I know I'll never have the time to survey them all, but I'm on holidays right now so I'm going to give it a red hot go.