Yes, yes,we know, we recently promised you that there was light at the end of the tunnel. And there is, even though regrettably, it persists as just a pinpoint. But take heart that during these tough times, there are good savings on offer to help the bottom line. Like Wildlight’s 30% discount on all image prices, which runs until the end of June. We hope you’ve had a chance to take advantage of the savings before now or will do so while they last in the month ahead. A penny saved is a penny earned!

We lift you up!

Using our superior knowledge of photography, we confirm that you can photograph a rainbow, although that pot of gold at its foot is a little more elusive to capture. It’s why we continue to build a library of thoroughly cheerful images that will gladden your heart and the hearts and minds of the people who see your work. After all, we all need some cheering up these days. We’re sure you can spare a couple of minutes for a good laugh out loud - so dive in here for a slideshow of 50 quick funnies from our archive.

Just in today - Water, water every where…

We’ve just received some fresh aerial images of waterlogged Lake Eyre (with a side trip to spectacular Wilpena Pound) taken by Grenville Turner, so lots to see now and to look forward to at Wildlight Photo Agency, perpetual visual chroniclers of things Australian.

New Collections

Be uplifted by Brian Eno’s wonderful image projections onto the sails of the Sydney Opera House that I recently photographed and which now join our large collection of pictures of this great landmark. Pip Blackwood’s new photos of camel racing out the back of Bourke will make you laugh and Dean Cox’s gallery of close up floral images from Australian gardens is sure to brighten your day. Dean is the technical sales rep for large-format printers at AGFA Graphics and a great font of wisdom for us here at Wildlight as he is for anyone seeking picture perfect solutions in print. Jeff Drewitz takes us off the road again with an energetic series of new images of motoring derring-do in the Victorian Alpine region, where the eagles cry, on a mountain high. There’s a memorable shot of Jeff fording the uncharacteristically swiftly flowing Murray River in his newly kitted out Land Cruiser. Take a spin through our library of all-Australian images at wildlight.net; seeing a folio of spectacular scenics like Shane Pedersen’s recent pix of Tasmania is bound to make you fall in love with dear old Oz all over again.

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!

Wildlight Photo Agency (Exikon Pty Ltd) is moving from Redfern to Double Bay (a.k.a Double Pay) as of 23 December 2008. Editing the analogue library and sending back transparencies has advanced us further down the path of virtualisation. We don’t need the space and expense of a large office.

Please make a note of our new address and telephone number:

Exikon Pty Ltd
Wildlight Photo Agency

P.O. Box 1606
Double Bay NSW 1360
Australia

T +61 (2) 9043 3255

There will be NO FAX - hurray!

We are throwing our facial support behind Wildlight photographer, Dean Cox, as he participates in Movember. It’s a month long charity event raising awareness for depression and prostate cancer in Australian men. Participants need to grow a mustache of their choice. Which style will Dean choose? Handlebar, Dali, Fu Manchu, Imperial or Hungarian…so many to choose from. Most importantly, what will his wife say when he goes to bed with a snood on?
Dean, send a a progress pic, we need to see the mo!

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!

See Richard Woldendorp’s extraordinary abstract aerial exhibition Truth and Magic in the Age of Photoshop at

boutwell draper gallery

82-84 George Street Redfern Sydney

22 October - 15 November

You can licence images from the master of aerial photography here at Wildlight.