LightVision

Enduring vision

When we launched our LightVision ezine last year, we told you that its source inspiration was a bi-monthly magazine of the same name that had its origins in Melbourne in 1977 under the editorial stewardship of Wildlight director Jean-Marc Le Péchoux. Then as now the publication provided a snapshot of the history and techniques of photography with an emphasis on people in the business. Back then, well known photographers like Philip Quirk, founder of Wildlight Photo Agency and Rennie Ellis, later a contributing photographer to the agency, were typical authors of the articles. The modern day electronic version carries on this tradition — co-incidentally, with both these photographers still represented in the library—with the added benefit that in its blog format we can receive your feedback and ideas. Who better than Jean-Marc to note these 32 years on: plus ça change… as much as the times change things stay the same at Wildlight, the standard bearer of high-quality Australian photography for almost a quarter of a century. After such a tangent of self-congratulation, you must be wondering, where’s this all leading to? Look here at the scanned pages of LightVISION #1 Australia’s international photography magazine, dated Sep/Oct 1977 (captured as a pdf with searchable text) and you’ll be comforted by the knowledge that nothing has passed you by, corduroys are still the rage and real estate in South Yarra is just as likely to break the bank now as it did back then. Relive that seminal moment on a summer afternoon in the 1820s, when the first photographic image of a French garden taken by heliograph process, introduced what was to become an all-encompassing medium. And to cap the retrospective, this stanza of verse by Minor White, surely will leave us with little doubt that things are bound to be the same in 2041 (but don’t hold your breath!):
“Count inhalations
 Count exhalations
 Count nothing
 Be Breath”

New takes on Suburbia

Refresh your stock of home soil images, covering anything from cliff-top washing lines to ferry commuters to perambulating mums to period pubs, by paying a visit to our new features section where you’ll see that we’ve recently been out and about in the burbs capturing the latest esoterica from everyday life. Remember, Wildlight is pure Oz with an emphasis on ozone (there’s a lot of sea air in our picture library at wildlight.net). Let the spray lash your face and rejoice that you’re experiencing the GFC in a sun-filled place.

Going for the Big Picture…

Ever wonder how a small tranny blows up for use in large format installations for offices, displays and so on? See for yourself: Eight massive scenics from large format Wildlight panoramas cover feature walls in the newly fitted out Hyundai Motors head office complex in Ryde, Sydney. The project was handled by George P Johnson, a specialist design firm that also causes big things to happen at trade shows and exhibitions.

Go overseas with Wildlight

Pictures from our library now grace two pages of the new ‘N’ Series Australian passport produced by Note Printing Australia. Colin Beard’s lively image (Page 10) of a stockman driving cattle in the Victorian highlands as well as yachts (Page 35) on the Huon River in Tasmania by Tom Keating are among images of Australia printed throughout the document making every visa page unique. This has resulted in a passport which is very difficult to falsify through page substitution or tampering, according to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who launched the new document at the end of May.

Wildlight standard bearer and Australian trade power broker, Ernst Graf von Schmeckle, was one of the first to be issued with the paw proof passports, he immediately headed to the ‘drome’ to attend the G8 conference.

Wildlight Photographer, Jeff Drewitz, has been submitting a flood of images to the library, so it’s no surprise to see one of Jeff’s beautiful landscapes on a book cover, Floodtide by Judy Nunn. Random House used a striking image of Cape Leveque on the Kimberley Coast. Jeff is a specialist landscape stock photographer, and a very successful one at that. He travfels extensively in Australia but also overseas. His recent images of Norway and New Zealand are quite breathtaking, check them out here.

Wildlight photographer’s, Sheridan Nilsson, Greg Hard, Tom Keating and Bill Bachman, have been included in an online photo gallery as part of National Geographic Traveler’s, Places of a Lifetime series. The ten picture showcase exclusively used images from the Wildlight library. To see all of Wildlight’s Bondi Beach collection click here.

Wildlight photographer, Hugh Brown, landed the section cover image for the Sydney Morning Herald Traveller section. Hugh’s spectacular aerial image, WL050001020, of the Ragged Ranges in the remote Kimberley region of Western Australia is a great example of a solid cover image. Firstly, it’s vertical, yippee! How many photographers are stuck holding their cameras horizontally? Too many. I can’t wait to go the the Kimberley, look at the quality of light on the cliff faces. It would be great to have someone like Hugh take you around the region, that’s exactly what he’s done with other people -taken them trekking through the scrub in search of some rarley seen canyon or cave painting. Hugh is an adventure photographer and has been on some hair raising journeys in some extreme weather, check out Hugh Brown’s website here. Hugh’s latest book, The Pilbara – Australia’s Ancient Heartbeat, makes you want to book a ticket right away!

We scored a double here, with this great book cover by Pan Macmillan Australia for the upcoming Phillip Gwynne novel, The Build Up. The book designer used two images, the top half of the cover is WL350000879, by Grenville Turner, a threatening sky over the top end, captured on a 6×12 cm Linhoff Technorama, on of Grenville’s many journey’s into the red center. The lower half, WL630009792, is an arresting image of a working dog in a battered but bright ute, taken by Bill Bachman on a cattle station somewhere up north. We use this image all the time to promote the Wildlight library, the dog has an incredible deep stare with one white eye and one black.