7th February 2009

Fortunately Tess and I are both well and the house and studios etc. missed the fire The community around St Andrews area was the worst hit with many deaths and total devastation. The good news is we live on the other side of the valley from the fire  - we were away at the coast Wilsons Prom, running a workshop when it hit and we had the frustration of only finding out about it through neighbors mobile phone calls – so it was even more surreal. We drove home Sunday but now Monday there is a huge fire at Wilsons Prom and the while park has been evacuated.

On 24th Dec I engaged in my eighth Summer Solstice journey at St Andrews, as I spent the whole day in the bush observing the patterns of light and shadow passing through the forest floor it was obvious the forest was dry and hot, but little did I know the entropy that would unfold in a few weeks.

The week before the fire assault had seen 4 days in a row over 43 degrees in Melbourne – a new heat record  - which is more like  46 degrees at St Andrews and also strong drying winds with no rain for over a month so the place was like an explosive time bomb.

The day of the fire was 46.7 in Melbourne a new record and about the same in St Andrews on our thermometer with a very strong north wind coming from the desert  - something like a hot fan oven in over drive. From all this hot weather, it had been evident that infrastructure like trains, power etc. were struggling in the heat and is simply not designed to cope. If you look closely at the info about computers etc many manufactures say don't operate over 35 degrees.
The fire was about 50 KM away from St Andrews which had been started by a transformer fault,  and then some embers blown on the wind started a fire a few valleys over  from us which began heading towards our place – the neighbors were freaking out with phone calls telling us don't expect a house when you get back. And then the wind suddenly changed and blew in at about 120km so the fire turned and rushed up the valley to the top of the mountain at speeds of about 200km  - the heat was so intense that houses and cars exploded before the flames reached them.  From some angles the fire was so hot there was no real smoke -  just flames and fire balls from vaporized eucalyptus oil in the leaves of the trees - So some people had no warning or chance of escape –
 We had friends who heard the fire was 50 km away and decided to head for town with neighbors for dinner -  by the time they reached the end of their road to turn onto the main road three fire balls exploded out of the sky in to the bush beside their car – when they rounded the next corner the trees on both sides of the road were on fire  - they managed to get out but still do not know if their house is OK – their neighbors have lost everything.
Some people coming behind them who managed to get out on the same road they had to cross over 30 fallen trees blown over in the explosive fire balls.
Tess's best friend Norma evacuated but has lost her home and vineyard, also the devastation to the nature reserve on her land is total.

We have heard accounts of friends jumping into dams with blankets over them and surviving extreme heat.
 One story about a guy who jumped inside a drain pipe that ran under the road and lay in the 2 inches of water  rolling over and over – as the fire passed over there were pulses of flame sucked through the pipe from one end to the other so he kept rolling in the water and survived.

 However, sadly we have had some friends who perished and many more who have lost everything. 
The hill across from us look like a bomb site – and the huge trees at Kinglake on the top of the ridge look like black match stick skeletons on the skyline - the St Andrews market has been set up  as a Police fire an army control Centrex –Many of the roads have trees down over them and as the clean up is on more keep falling over –
Some of the fires are still burning close to us - so we are still tense.
Looking at the destruction and loss gives us a new insight and respect to the people we know and love.

  We are both thankful to be alive and have a many friends like you

 Love Lloyd and Tess.

22 Feb 2009 - proof images second shoot - for this I drove up Rankins Rd, which runs off Baldspur Rd, by myself, late in the afternoon. Long shadows cut across the land - as black as the burnt trees, the two created a valued projection.As a link to the projections of light in the Carbon Obscura works, I was immediately drawn to them.

There had been no rain and thick ash still covered the ground. At one point I was confronted with a stack of fallen trees - piled like match sticks the scene was hard.

Much of the landscape has no leaves - despite the thunder of the fire like 1000 jet engines on the day of the fire, the silence, the stillness is deafening - even on a still day there is the vibration of life, but here there is nothing. disturbing - stop feel -

light projections -

After these first shoots, the coroner put a ban entry to the area to prevent the area where people might have died being disturbed - each death site was treated as a crime scene -

16 March 2009 - proof images - third shoot - During this week we had the first rain, which had begun to erode the surface away of the ash dust - It soon became evident that the same leaf litter, fallen trees and branches that had worked in such an effective manner in the St Andrew Summer Solstice that I had shot in late December 2008, just months before, had all been consumed in this bush just a few KM away. The only elements that remained was the burnt earth, the black trees and the dark shadows. So I looked to use the interplay of these as key elements in the triptychs.

St Andrews Summer Solstice December 2008

31 March 2009 - proof images - bush on a walk between Kinglake and Ninks Rd - St Andrews

I was also getting a sense of how a much earlier series on titled Body Symbols - based on the elemental symbols earth, air, fire and water related to the fire and how what seemed like all organic matter had been destroyed in the fire -

Above and left - Pharos Editions Studio photographed through the burned trees on Baldspur Rd. May 2009

But a few days after the fire, we have Brian and Di Gilkes staying in the studio flat - their house was destroyed but the studio of Pharos Editions survived so we have move them into the Baldessin Press.

Also Rae and Stewart Morgan who lost their house have moved into the cottage at the Baldessin Press

I rang Brian on the mobile just as I I took the photograph, and he can be seen on the left corner of the studio talking to me on the phone.