As part of the trip we continued on to Lake Mungo where we camped around the far side of the Lunette. It was a moonlit night with a strong wind blowing white clouds across the sky. Here I experiment with laying the camera on the ground pointing up at the sky for 30 second exposures. The cloud became a ghost like blur with stars piercing bright holes through the fabric. The branches of the trees were also moving in the wind, which added to the effect.

 

During a workshop that I ran at Wilsons Prom in Feb 2007, I found a fantastic twisted tree trunk in the grounds of the Tidal River camping ground. But it was impossible to photograph without distracting extraneous details, so I began painting the tree trunk with torch light at night. I would place various coloured filters over the torch and paint the tree with light.

 

After the Burrinja show opened, I ran another workshop at Wilsons Prom, and engaged in a much more elaborate series of luna light paintings. Placing different coloured gels over the torch and selectively panting areas of rocks. However, the rock were far less reflective than Mungo and the exposures were much longer.

 

Gathering Falling Light

While at wilsons Prom I began experimenting with walking along the beach with the shutter open for 30 seconds. This was at dusk when the light levels were falling, and and it occurred to me that it was like gathering falling light.

Out doors, light falls like star dust from the heavens upon us where it is either absorbed or reflected. It manifests a recognisable likeness that we identify as ourselves or another. As photographers, we might take a photograph of these light modulations in a traditional manner to represent a person or object.

Light from the same source also falls indiscriminately around us, but like waves that crash on an isolated beach, stray light disappears without acknowledgement or trace. In this series of images I use the camera as a means of gathering up this falling light to slowly grow an image inside the camera. In a similar manner to the environmental artist, Richard Long, the images reference a meditative walk, in my case, along a beach in moon-light or a bush track at dusk. However, where Long uses a camera to document his walks, I actually use the camera as part of the process of walking. (I first introduced this concept into my work in 1993) For the duration of the exposure while  walking, the camera is held at chest height, pointing forward with the shutter open for an extended period of time -  there is no way to view the scene -  only a sense of  what might be projected through the lens.  Many exposures of 30 second to several minutes are made during each walk, and in each the falling light is gathered through the lens of the camera. In the resulting images, a sense of time and vibration references the layers of light dust falling to earth.

 All Prints – 432mm X 557mm Museo Portfolio Rag paper  - 300gms with Epson Ultrachrome pigments