LightVision

Hail Virtualisation!

After editing 300,000 ‘trannies’ in December, I spent January denying that photography existed. We kept only 3% of the analogue library, the rest were sent, all 500 kilos, back to photographers. Moving the business to a smaller space couldn’t have come at a better time - significantly reduced overheads; getting back to core business - an online picture library, not a storage facility for analogue IP - hail virtualisation! We have thousands of premium images from our photographers around Australia in the production pipeline and outstanding new collections have recently been uploaded.

New Collection

Pilbara Paradox

It’s like having a great lawn and inviting a puppy over to play; almost certain physical carnage. That’s the paradox facing the Pilbara, one of Australia’s most pristine and remarkable landscapes and also the one with the most mining and developmental activity. We thought it would be a good idea to preserve the memory of the Pilbara before it becomes too full of holes.

Hugh Brown and David Bettini our intrepid photographers from way out west have done just that with this updated collection of some pretty amazing images. These two WA pros capture the region from different  angles. Hugh’s recent pictures shoot, for the mining giants, are now available online. Hugh has clocked many hours hanging out of choppers over Port Hedland, covered in dust in the open pit mines and lost himself in the boondocks looking for exploration rigs.

As he scans across the open plains, David has concentrated on the ancient beauty of the Pilbara, from the emerald green waters to the coast to the red ragged ranges of the interior. All his recent online images can be found in his latest hard cover landscape book, Pilbara, Western Australia.

Editor’s Choice

Hope Springs Eternal

As history repeats itself with a season of horrendous bushfires, we at Wildlight are reminded of the recurring scenes of hardship, courage and heroism. We also see the benevolent signs of hope as  communities face the daunting task of rebuilding, in some cases starting over almost from scratch. This striking image by the late  Rennie Ellis taken six weeks after the devastating Ash Wednesday fires of 1983 near the Great Ocean Road , Victoria, is a timeless reminder of nature’s powers—good and bad—and a symbol of renewal in the face of destruction. Just add your masthead and gutter!

Early Australian Female Photographer

This month we feature Muriel Mowbray Stephenson, an early Australian female commercial photographer. Her interest in photography began in her native Tasmania at the beginning of 20th century and continued in Sydney, where she moved at the start of the World War I. She worked first in the Darlinghurst studio of C.S. Beers, who published under the title Carlton Series. In the 1940s, she took over the business and published as the Mowbray Series. Her studio was located right in the centre of Kings Cross, Sydney, next to the historic Darlinghurst fire station. Her studio was demolished in the 1970’s to make way for the tunnel. From the balcony she captured the changing face of Kings Cross over the years, including historic events such as the Queen’s visit in 1954.

Muriel’s distinctive cursive handwriting appeared as title information on the face of thousands of photographs and postcards distributed in Australia for decades.

Click here for a preview of her iconic images, now presented as the Mowbray Collection by Wildlight. These include historic Australian subjects; building stages of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, city trams and views of the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney. It is interesting to note that Muriel, who was my great-grand aunt, rarely took credit for her work in her own name; so I am pleased to now give her the recognition she so readily deserves.  Thousands more of her black & white images are still to be scanned. Enjoy a piece of Aussie history!

Here’s a selection of pictures from the HUGE opening night of the No Standing Only Dancing: Photographs by Rennie Ellis exhibition at the NGV in Melbourne. The night was a huge success with up to 400 people keen to share the positive vibe. I over heard comments such as “I could have been anyone of those people (in the photos)”, such was the positive connection that punters had with Rennie’s images. Others said “it’s been so long since I came out of an exhibition feeling happy and so full of hope!”. The exhibition has been expertly curated by Susan van Wyk - the Kings Cross room is a stand out! You can see the exhibition at the Ian Potter Centre in Federation Square  until 22 Feb 2009. The NGV has produced a book of the same name in conjunction with the exhibition, with essays by Susan and George Negus, it’s a must have. If you want to go a step further you can purchase a unique collectors item. The Rennie Ellis Photo Archive has commissioned a limited edition print run of 100 books, specially bound in linen with slip case, containing an original black and white print Dino Ferrari, Toorak Road 1976. Buy one now before the edition runs out.

[Show as slideshow]

Taking Stock

Just like the stock market we are shedding stock as quickly as the Aussie dollar is going through the floor. Difference is we are doing a careful cull…of images and not a panicked sell off of ridiculous assets that no-one understands.

I was always proud and thought it impressive that the Wildlight analogue library contained a whopping 300,000 images. With some of the best names in the business, it’s an archive with great depth and top quality imagery. Despite this abundance of cellulose resources, we are hurtling towards a business model which embraces virtualisation. In these bleak economic times, automating labour-intensive business processes is a big saving for a small business like ours. So picture an office with loads of filing cabinets labeled ‘empty’. Feels good - my eyes are wrecked and at the end of the day, seeing or talking about image-making has me reaching for the Stoli. We are keeping the cream of the crop and sending the rest back to photographers. What do we do with the edit?…edit it again…and again - hopefully, we’ll have a few thousand survivors to scan - sigh.

We haven’t been the only ones hunched over a light table waiting for the chiropractor. The Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive has spent the last five years editing 500,000 images of the late Melbourne identity, Rennie Ellis. Wildlight is proud to represent his images in our collection, and now you can see them at a well deserved major retrospective of his work at the National Gallery of Victoria - it’s going to be very retro - I just finished starching my safari suit for the opening night!

We’ve been very privileged to participate in a new book compiled by filmmaker and photographer, John Ogden. With a working title Portraits from a Land Without People, it’s sure to stir the pot. Oggy has researched hundreds of thousands of images of aboriginal Australians dating back to 1847. The book comprises 300 powerful images which describe a pictorial history of Aboriginal Australians. Wildlight is proud to have contributed seven images to the book by David Moore, Penny Tweedie and Carolyn Johns. The book is scheduled to be released in February 2009, with proceeds flowing to the Jimmy Little Foundation, to help improve kidney health in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. To see a multimedia slideshow and interview with Oggy by the Sydney Morning Herald, then click here. I’ve been trying to get John Ogden to join the Wildlight library for a year now, but he seems to be distracted by this book…good luck Oggy!

A fascinating and quite unexpected discovery at the PictureHouse Sydney 2008 tradeshow did present itself rather perplexingly in the unisex toilet block at B2 Studios. All manner of derrière delights could be experienced just by sitting down on the throne. And futuristic command module it was, complete with a control panel which would instantly retire the space shuttle program. A picture is splashed a thousand words…