Resonance
I
I knew we needed a special image of Brighton
Bay, something that could encompass as many aspects of Baxter's poetic
vision as possible. I also knew that if this image was to include
a large swell with the right lighting, we could wait about two years
to get it right. But we did not have to wait too long before this image was taken late one evening, there was
less than half an hour before the sun sank below the horizon and
it was one of those rare events when the swell was very large and
yet still clean due to a light westerly wind that was blowing, the
sky was bright and clear. It was the low angle of the sun that sent
the light kissing obliquely across the face of the waves giving
the shot a special quality. I saw this effect driving back to Brighton
and had to race home to get my equipment, scramble down the bank
and around the rocks to a spot I knew I could get this wide panorama.
The problem was to secure the tripod on the crumbing rock and get
a series of shots that highlighted the aspects that related to Baxter's
work before the light vanished.
This
image shows from left to right:
The flax covered rock bluff of Big Rock with
Green Island on the horizon. Lion Rock in the centre of the bay
and Barney's Island the last rock outcrop on the horizon extending
from the right. Further towards the right is the Domain, the bridge,
the area where the river cuts the sand banks as it meets the sea,
the glass fronted houses and the beach. On the far right is more
of the rock bluffs of Big Rock.
Map of Brighton Bay indicating where the image Resonance I was taken from |
James K Baxter - Poem
references
At
Brighton Bay 1966 CP
The opposites of
sex and pain
Like new - cut banks the river had gouged out------
Today I hoisted
myself
Up the rock stair that's called Jacob's Ladder
This end of the
bay, shoving through gorse, and stood
On the smooth edge of the flax-covered cliff
Brighton
1955
Glass
- fronted batches stand and look
on the brown hurdling waves
October
Water Poem 1963
The
wind that cuts the flax like a new pocket knife--------
In which the sea
has taken charge of the land.
No one can tell us how to get on good terms with the great
Sea devil or wind of middle age.
Love
- Lyric V 1944
Flowers
of foam from undersea yeast risen.
that die at a brackish river mouth.
The Rock Woman
Continually, as
a boy, I came to this
Rock ledge above the sinuous wave.
The
Storm 1961
In
the morning I climb the gale-thrashed ridges
of flax and rock, look down on the lumbering surf.
Dirge
The dark swell's
thunder
Below the crumbling rock----
where the green
breakers rage
are shadows of old torment
Because
the Flax Blades 1968
Because
the flax blades bend above
the dark bay, this way and that |
