Landscapes and People on the Edges of Landscapes, 1979

Photographs

NSW, Sydney, Victoria, St. Albans, Tarwin Lower, Healesville Sanctuary, Man on a Motorcycle, Beach Boys, Await Instructions from Ferrymaster Before Proceeding, Wiseman's Ferry, Road Map, Hume Highway, Not Dead Yet, St. Albans Post Office, Three Boys Fishing, Glebe Island Bridge, Young Girl on Sydney Harbour, The Dicisive Moment (?) and a Dog, Vacluse Bay, Visitors at the Settlers Arms, Three and a Half Kangaroos, Woman in a Pink Dress, Boy and Girl with a Rabbit Pelt, Trees, Cootringdon, Orange Poppy, Mildura, Farmer Going Home, Cruise, Sydney Harbour, Five Aboriginals, Black Wattle Bay, A Little Girl and Her Dog, Leura

To me there are no rules for what makes a photograph work. Sometimes I am up at dawn with 32 ASA film, tripod, cable release, etc. and make that sort of photograph. Sometimes I am in a car and with fast film, everything moving, windscreen dirty and light "flat", I make that sort of photograph.

I don't feel that my camera is an instrument through which I "shoot".

It seems to me that whatever I am photographing moves towards me, and that in that instant a new physical and psychic construct is born which is not the reality photographed and should not be taken as such. That would be like calling a river the sea, or a remark about the sea, the sea itself.

One thing I particularly like about photographs is their detail. Colour photography, except for the use of Instamatics, has to my mind developed a tradition of peculiarly static images. I like hand-colouring because of its painterly quality, and its ability to render spiritedness and fluidity.

The photograph "Not Dead Yet", while no different from many others in formal terms, is the only photograph I would not like the show to go on without.

The modus operandi of Western Civilization has been the conquest of nature. Until we work with rather than against the forces of nature there will be no deep-seated political or social change. I do not believe this to be a simplistic statement.

These hand-coloured photographs are the first of three groups on a similar theme. This first group is from various parts of Victoria and southern New South Wales. The second group, which I have begun, is of northern New South Wales and southern Queensland. The third will be of South Australia and the "Dead Heart".

Micky Allan
Landscapes and People on the Edges of Landscapes, Link Exhibition, Art Gallery of South Australia, 1979