Hometown

My intention is to showcase the Outback region of Australia through a photographic study of the land and its defining characteristics. Contemplating my personal and the wider population’s profound connection to the land, I aspire to create a vivid portrayal of the chosen landscape through my camera. The rich history of Broken Hill and surrounding areas as gateway to the red centre of Australia creates a fascinating backdrop for this study. Exploring essential components of the natural surroundings, from the minute grains of sand to the infinite expanse of the skies, I seek to create a detailed photographic tapestry of a historically undocumented portion of outback Australia. The use of analogue film, both large and medium format, represents a return to the old in an attempt to forge a deeper understanding of my craft and country. This will be a study of a space, exploring the constant flux of the Australian Desert, its perfections and imperfections, and how these components interact to form a landscape we have all come to know so well, yet often know so little about.

Have been suffering a bit of writers block while trying to get my introduction right, so went to some of the greats for a bit of inspiration! 

After MUCH deliberation on how to incorporate my medium format work into the book without it looking clumsy and messy, I have come to this solution.  The aim is to create colour pallets out of all of my medium format shots, detailing all the different tones and textures that come together to form the landscapes. the pallets all fit into the same dimensions as the large format images in order to keep the flow of the book fluid.  I have also (after some sound advice) decided to place the medium format before the large, in order to give the book more of a progressive rather than regressive feeling. walking the viewer first through all the colours and shapes that make up the landscape and then introducing them to the full detail images. (plus going from medium to large just makes much more sense than the other way around!) 

After MUCH deliberation on how to incorporate my medium format work into the book without it looking clumsy and messy, I have come to this solution. 

The aim is to create colour pallets out of all of my medium format shots, detailing all the different tones and textures that come together to form the landscapes. the pallets all fit into the same dimensions as the large format images in order to keep the flow of the book fluid. 

I have also (after some sound advice) decided to place the medium format before the large, in order to give the book more of a progressive rather than regressive feeling. walking the viewer first through all the colours and shapes that make up the landscape and then introducing them to the full detail images. (plus going from medium to large just makes much more sense than the other way around!) 

I have finally chosen my font!!  typography is obviously a huge aspect of the book and will have a huge impact on the appeal of the final product. I needed to chose a font the complimented my style of work, the quiet and calming feeling I want my book to have. This font works beautifully in achieving that serenity, whilst also keeping the clean lines and sense of order that I need throughout the book. I will most likely pull it back to a medium grey rather than the black to further soften the effect. 

I have finally chosen my font!! 

typography is obviously a huge aspect of the book and will have a huge impact on the appeal of the final product. I needed to chose a font the complimented my style of work, the quiet and calming feeling I want my book to have. This font works beautifully in achieving that serenity, whilst also keeping the clean lines and sense of order that I need throughout the book. I will most likely pull it back to a medium grey rather than the black to further soften the effect. 

Big Change…

Over the last couple of days, while working on the book layout, i have decided to split the book into two! 
one main book, detailing the landscapes with two sections… 
one named LARGE
one named MEDIUM
possibly with the polaroids at the end
and a second, smaller book to accompany it, filled with all the studio work, that was initially going to be at the end of the book. it will be a small pocket sized (about half an a4) book, matte hardcover, with Blurbs (amazing) colour matte text wheight paper. 

Index… 

These are a few layout options for the index section at the back of the book… 

as i will not be including text in this section there is a lot of room to play with in terms of page design, the one factor I need to remember is that it needs to be a square layout as the book is square!! 

Lighting 

Broken Hill

Another big change that has occurred since setting out on this journey is the discovery that Broken Hill in itself is actually quite a large city (in comparison to its surroundings), it was absolutely nothing like I had imagined it to be, the first signs coming into the town being ads for McDonalds, KFC and Hungry Jacks, it was much more commercial and modern that I had pictured it in my head. This then caused me to venture out to the areas surrounding Broken Hill rather than the town itself, making it more of a study of Central Western NSW as opposed to just one town. 

One Big Realisation:

I probably have three different projects all rolled into one at the end of the day, and to fully stick to my brief I need to separate out all the interesting but unnecessary shots that while may be the beginning of another whole project, are not adding anything to this project and are just taking away from the impact and confusing the message. 

Over the past three weeks after returning from my final trip I have had the chance to review all the images together, then go back and re-visit my thesis. This has then lead to the decision to cut out any man made objected (i.e., the trucks, old engines, junkyards) and focus only on the land as this is what I had planned to do in the first place.          

Changes 

 

The biggest hurdle that I had to face when shooting the project was the extreme difference between the landscape I had imagined I would find and what actually out there. Because off the flood seasons over the past few years, the landscape has changed immensely and rolling green hills replaced the once arid desert. Whilst at first this was quite challenging, in the end it has actually become a part of the project as in the beginning I planned to explore the constant flux of the Australian desert landscape, and this it a big part of that theory. This change was intensified when on the second and third trip were actually separated by this years flood season. Upon returning, areas that were previously flat plains were now massive lakes, the muted greens that I had been so surprised to find in January were now bright vibrant greens. This presented a few challenges because even though my intention was to create a study of the land, I felt it still needed to show some resemblance to the Australian outback, or the impact of the whole project would be lost. This also presented technical issues as a few of the areas that I had planned on returning to, to re-shoot were now underwater.

 

The changed landscape also meant that I had to work a lot harder to find the shots I was looking for and while I worked with this as best I could, it would have been helpful to have more time in each location to get to know the area better and explore all of my surroundings. 

Still life final shoot - example of lighting set-up and objects collected along the way

As time is starting to run short, I decided to get all of my still life stuff shot for the index pages in one final shooting day, and 5 hours later… i had succeeded!