The Ipswich show has now closed and moves to Rockhampton Art Gallery – opening on 17 February. I was most touched by a report I received from the Director of the Ipswich Art Gallery:
'REMOTE & WILD' attracted over 17,000 visitors during a nine week showing at the Ipswich Art Gallery. The visitor response was overwhelming, with 100% positive feedback and a significant numbers of visitors compelled to express their passionate admiration for the work. The photographs are spectacular, showing a series of panoramic and diverse Australian landscapes, that connect with something deep within the psyche of the visiting public -- this is the Australia they adore".
Michael Beckmann, Director Ipswich Art Gallery
Anyone in Sydney who has missed my lecture/presentations can catch up with one this month. I will be talking to the North Sydney Leagues Photo Soc in Cammeray on 14 Feb (details from 0414 901 986), and to the Manly Warringah Camera Club in Brookvale on 23 Feb (details from 9882 1101).
We have just returned from the opening of my Ipswich Art Gallery exhibition. The photo below shows about half the total number of images on display. Some 200 people attended my lecture/presentations on the weekend and initial response to the show is very favourable.
The exhibition runs until the end of January and it then re-opens in the Rockhampton Art Gallery on 17 February, where it runs through until the end of March. Other venues for 2012 are the Moree Plains Gallery (6 September – 19 November) and the Hervey Bay Regional Gallery (7 December – 29 January 2013).
On our return from Ipswich we stopped in Crystal Creek on the Queensland / NSW border for some hiking in the rainforest, and this has added one more image to my South East web portfolio. With a good computer screen this image, like all the other long panoramas in the portfolios, can be viewed by scrolling across a detailed image almost 1 metre long.
My lecture/presentations at the forthcoming Ipswich Art Gallery show will be on Sunday afternoon 27 November. The first starting at 2.30pm with 90 visuals describes the trials and tribulations of heli-camping and where we go. The second at 4.00pm with over 50 visuals describes my photographic technique. Further details should soon be posted on: http://www.ipswichartgallery.qld.gov.au/exhibitions
There will not be any lecture/presentations associated with my show at Rockhampton Art Gallery early next year.
At the request of SERCA – the South East Region Conservation Alliance, the Queen is to be presented with images of some of Australia’s most beautiful natural environments. Last week-end Carol and I motorbiked to Canberra to hand over a copy of my Forest Connections image and a boxed copy of our book REMOTE & WILD: Seeking the unknown Australia. I hope she enjoys the read!
Richard and Carolyn unroll the Forest Connections photo in front of Lake Burley Griffin and Parliament House in Canberra
This Forest Connections image was taken at the request of Prue Acton for SERCA. During the last year thousands of copies of this image have been sold by SERCA to generate funds to help its efforts to protect these beautiful forests. They are the only remaining habitat for the Koala in southern NSW, and this life-sustaining habitat is currently being threatened by logging for wood chips. See news update on 15/06/11 below for more info.
The next 'Natural Forests' show opens in Cyclone Gallery in South Melbourne on 5 October; it then goes to Gallery Bodalla on the NSW south coast, opening on 5 November. Details about these from Valerie Faber 0421 238 174.
My next two REMOTE & WILD Regional Gallery shows are both in Queensland. The first opens at the Ipswich Art Gallery on 26 November and I will be giving a lecture/presentation on my work on 27 November (http://www.ipswichartgallery.qld.gov.au/exhibitions). This show runs until 29 January 2012, then goes to the Rockhampton Art Gallery where it runs from 17 February until 1 April. Both are large shows ( approximately 2 dozen images) with large works - most approximately 3 metres long. If you live in the vicinity I hope you will be able to get along to see one of them.
The ‘Natural Forests’ exhibition set up by Prue Acton, and financed from sales of postcards and limited edition prints of my ’Forest Connections’ photo, has now run in Bermagui and in Sydney. It opens in Canberra in the ANU School of Art Foyer Gallery on 5 August – see the SERCA site for details.
http://www.serca.org.au/naturalforests/index.html
Here is a photo taken at the opening of the Bermagui show and a snap taken on our way down to the show as we were driving into Bodalla. The light was amazing, clear setting sun to the right and black storm clouds overhead and to the left.
In addition to the Forest Connectons aerial photograph, another that drew a lot of interest at the exhibition was one we took further north showing Gulaga Mountain and Wallaga Lake.
I am delighted by the news that my good friend Alec Marr has used his genius for strategy to save the Tasmanian old growth forests. He has just negotiated the sale of the highly controversial Gunns woodchip mill to a tourism consortium and he is now the Managing Director of the business.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/07/15/3270578.htm?site=idx-tas
Whilst referencing the web and forests the Getup spoof on Harvey Norman’s TV ad is well worth viewing if you have not already seen it.
http://www.getup.org.au/noharveynormanno
Our last major photography trip took us up through Queensland and the Gulf Country to Darwin. We spent a couple of days at ‘Tentpole’ in the Gulf. The Jabiru was on its nest again and our regular swimming hole had a total of 8 resident freshwater crocodiles. One day we found a couple of them fishing – their mouths wide open in the cascading water, just waiting patiently for a fish to swim in.
We then flew out from Darwin to the Pilbara. En route we detoured via the Edgar Range about 150 km south east of Broome in the northern part of the Great Sandy Desert. Here are a couple of photos taken there.
We continued on to the Pilbara but the weather was wet and gusty – horrible for camping. Photography was somewhat constrained, but the rain clouds did part briefly allowing me to take this photo of these unusually shaped conglomerate rock formations near Wittenoom Gorge.
We cut this part of the trip short and flew north to Cape Levique and out to sea where we landed on a tiny Kimberley island. Here I found several great photos – see below.
Our trip back to Sydney took us through the Tanami and Simpson Deserts – both freshly covered in green spinifex and low bushes as a result of two years of rain. The next two photos were taken on top of a dune in the Simpson and in the Yarrunganyi Hills near Yeundemu.
The fuel stop at Yeundemu was memorable. It was a Sunday morning and several locals wandered out to the airport to have a look at the unusual visitor – a helicopter. Among them was a nurse from the local medical centre who had three dogs, one an Aboriginal camp dog puppy that was looking for a home. Carol fell in love and we now have a new member of the family!
Our last night camping before getting home was spent near Currawinya in southern Queensland. We landed beside a lake that was crowded with nesting water birds, where we witnessed this beautiful sunset.
I will sign off with a photo taken in Queensland of a striking butterfly that kept landing on my trouser leg. It took over 20 attempts before I managed to get this shot with its wings fully extended.
I have just got back from 3 weeks camping out bush and shortly will have some new images to add to the website. I returned in time for a battle with our somewhat misguided aviation safety regulator – see:
Last week I was in Bermagui for the opening of the Natural Forests exhibition that flowed from the photographers' camp organised by Prue Acton – see article in the Weekend Australian on the media page and the video below. See:
http://www.serca.org.au/naturalforests/index.html
It then goes to the ANU School of Art Foyer Gallery in Canberra from 2 - 20 August.
Richard Green creates an aerial Panorama of coastal wilderness in SE NSW. Movie by Lee Chittick
One of the most recent developments in my photographic technique has been to create stitched aerial landscape panoramas from the helicopter. The first of these 'Forest Connections' was taken at the request of Prue Acton in order to help the campaign to save the old growth forests in southern NSW from logging for wood-chips. This image has proven very popular and is being used on several charity letterheads and is selling as postcards and signed prints – all to generate funds for the forests cause.
Copyright © 2009 Richard Green