The bush report
Hello!
A quick one from me this week. I’ve just come back from 3 days/3 nights in the bush taking photos and unsuccessfully chasing dingoes.
Regardless of that particular missed opportunity (and I always knew it would be a super slim chance to see one from the car) I had a good time exploring and spending a lot of time in the High Country. I think I added some great photos to my work.
It’s always interesting, trying to think about when something is done. I’m aware that there’s WAY more photos that I could make: visiting K’Gari (where there’s constant tension between tourists and dingoes), visiting the sandy desert or Coober Pedy where the Dingo Proof Fence is at its most absurd (the Fence exists to protect sheep, Coober is in an area so hot and dry people live underground, so there’s no sheep to protect, just thousands of dollars spent each month propping up a harmful structure), driving around Western QLD where some of the most intense anti-Dingo actions take place, and more in plain sight than in Victoria. Still, at some point something is done, as I find myself losing focus on the shooting and focusing more on the turning all the photos, research, ideas, etc into something more than images on my hard drive.
There’s a lot to say about this process - of driving around a lot, camera on the passenger’s seat, hoping to find things. This trip I found a lot - it was a bit grim and a bit odd - I dug up poison from the soil, photographed some of the most beautiful forests, and photographed dingo bones. As I’ve been making this work I’ve been wondering why I’m so drawn to violence and wanting to respond to it with photography. There’s lots of frustrating environmental stuff that I could work on, and in some ways I do, but there’s something about the menace that I try to get at. I guess, in another life, or maybe a different version of this one, I could be a lot more aggressive and violent a person - perhaps that’s what drives me a bit, or perhaps not, I really don’t know.
But there’ll be a lot to report soon:
You should come out on Saturday/Sunday!
I’m at Same Page book fair this weekend - any Melbournites it’s at Gertrude Contemporary, in Thornbury/Preston - so come along and say hello to me, I’ll be there 11-5pm both days. I’ll report back on that next week.
Whether you’re into photography, art, writing, design, queer culture, poetry, magazines or just good creative energy the fair is a great place to spend an hour or so :)
Next week I’m off to Singapore Art Book Fair and am looking forward to telling you all about it the week after next.
The day before I go I’ve been employed to teach a ½ day workshop at a local university as well, which is very encouraging!
Australian Geographic and Serious Crime are both publishing articles I’ve written/photographed this month so I’m looking forward to sharing those as they come out :)