Wilderness Photography Exhibition - Fletchers Fotographics Bega
Laurie McArthur's wilderness photography exhibition hung in the window of Fletchers Fotographics, Bega
A Few Words from the Artist
Andamooka and Bosworth stations have stormed their way into that collection of photography haunts that I regard as “Special Places.”
The freedom to move around unhindered and the advice on the lay of the land and the points of interest has facilitated travel and the discovery of such stimulating landscape images.
In the words of one local pastoralist “There’s no desert around here”. And it’s quite true! Even Lake Torrens is full of life for those who can see it.
Lake Torrens, the sand dunes, the gibber plains, the dry creek beds, the waterholes and so many other areas of the arid region are full of imagery of life as it really is. And life wasn’t meant to be easy!
This landscape is about struggle and survival and death. The images are of a rugged and rustic wilderness that will kill you just for being there if you don’t watch out.
And yet this hard place is bathed in colour, texture, form and light that give it grandure, a character of it’s own, personality, life.
Because the outback people are an inseperable part of the land, these attributes are reflected in the land’s inhabitants.
This is what I seek to capture, what turns me on, why I repeatedly return to the arid region. I am a man, driven!
So it’s with a feeling a gratitude to my two hosts, Danny Oldfield and Max Greenfield, that I present this small volume of Wilderness Landscape Photography, hoping that you understand and enjoy it in much the same way as I do.
Robert Hayson, director of Fletchers Fotographics in Bega, has generously sponsored this exhibition of wilderness landscape photography from the arid region of South Australia, making his shop window available for the first week in February, 2007.
Laurie McArthur
Bega
February 2007