Burning/fire/heatwave
Midsummer in Clare. The heat has rolled in, as has a lingering cloak of bushfire smoke from wildfires burning in the Grampians national park in Victoria. On this day it will be 40 degrees celcius. Normally I wouldn’t be attracted to entering that heat with a camera because the light is so harsh but then I thought … maybe that is a good theme to explore?
The bushfire smoke hovers over the township.
Nothing in this collection is technically a “great” photo, but that is what my Journal is about. Just working the muscles, testing ideas, and lately I am being drawn to “bad” photography as an entry point into thinking about what I like and don’t like. Pretty isn’t really the most interesting, is it?
There’s something quintessential about Australian summers and ashphalt. Sporting grounds bathed in white hot heat remind me of a childhood spent running about outdoors. Easy to feel nostalgic but things were not better then. (Frankly they’re probably worse now in many ways …)
Photography becomes a sort of constant companion after a while, I find. I open my cupboard of cameras and ask, “Who wants to come for a walk?” Three cameras were used in this series of snapshots. Canon IXUS (almost a rarity now, as the small point and shoot market has dwindled), my Fufjifilm XT100 (trying to decide if I like the colour simulations everybody talks about), and my trusty old Sony A7 with vintage Nikon 50mm lens (we are very close friends now). I used to predominately be a writer in my arts practice, my head constantly filled with words and observations. Now, my mind is more silent. The words have withered. Photography brings me into the now, the present moment. I prefer the language of images and light and objects and framing. Words create barriers sometimes.
A grand tree indeed.
There isn’t much else to say here. I took a walk over two hot days to keep my artistic practice of photography alive. I embraced the bad light and tried to find a new way to look at my local township. Winter brings fog and rain, summer brings smoke and too-bright-light. It’s important sometimes, to just go take photos and remember why you enjoy it.
