LightVision

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!

Graeme Philipson has all alarms and sirens wailing in his article about a leaked document, supported by a small group of US Congress members, proposes to put in place an anti-counterfeiting treaty at the next meeting of the G8. He reports in the SMH today that if this treaty were adopted then any boarder guard/security guard could seize electronic equipment on the suspicion that it infringes copyright or intellectual property. I agree it’s a chilling thought that your laptop can be confiscated and indefinitely based on suspicion not hard facts. However,he then goes on with a discourse about the abandonment of copyright in the digital era, flagging the greed of the record companies and movie studios in disallowing consumers to disseminate their content. Should commercial stock images be thrown in the same boat? Are the image libraries just like the record companies? I believe most photographers would be up in arms about the thought that their hard earned copyright should be scraped so it can be easily distributed. A distinction needs to be made between consumer driven industries and B2B industries, Wildlight licences images almost exclusively to third party companies, who in turn are selling a product or service, which has an intellectual property value. On Mr Philipson’s website he freely invites you to ‘rip off anything you want’ from his website, yet he still wants his moral rights upheld when he asks that you credit his stories. Isn’t he claiming ownership of his articles? That’s copyright isn’t it. So, he’s actually granting us a ‘free’ licence to use his words. I wander if he receives a royalty from sales when Fairfax syndicates his stories to overseas media outlets….?

I can give myself a pat on the back for this cover published by Penguin. The background image, WL330013342, for The Stockmen book cover, was taken on a sheep station near my property in Marulan. I was on my way to Berrima to shoot and write a story about the Southern Highlands. I saw the sheep in the fog, jumped out of the car, and thought ‘no one is ever going to buy these images’. Of course the unthinkable happened, the Southern Highlands story never got published but the sheep did…
 
 

Bill Bachman’s image appears on the cover of the recent book, Offbeat Australia, published by Penguin Books Australia. Bill is a highly successful stock photographer, and image WL630010029 is a great example of a repeat seller. It’s an easy formula: model released person, simple graphic composition and uniquely Australian. Take note!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

It’s been over a week and I’m still buzzing from seeing the awesome video/sound installation by Bill Viola titled The Tristan Project. I saw it at St Saviour’s Church here in Redfern. It’s an installation inspired by Wagner’s opera Tristan and Isolde. Thankfully the exhibition was extend by another week because I caught it on the second last night! I really had no idea what to expect when I turned up at the Church on Young Street after dark, but soon enough the sound projecting from the church was making my hair stand on end. What greeted me when I walked inside the dark church, can only be described as ‘brilliant’. I took a seat on one of the pews and proceeded to be taken on this trance like journey for 20 minutes, first the Fire Woman scene then Tristan’s Ascension. During that time I experienced almost every emotion my soul had to offer - seriously. The richly textured (and loud) soundscape married with the intense crisp visuals had me screaming for more. Because I lead such a commercial life, this kind of intense creative art was completely invigorating. Unfortunately the two scenes I saw are no longer showing, however you can still catch The Fall into Paradise scene at the Art Gallery of New South Wales until 27 July. Go and see it immediately - be creative again!