A proposition

“Always look at where you want to go, not where you don’t want to go.”
-A.S. 9/10/24

The Witch’s Thumb. Pentax MX, Oct 2020.

Misty quartzite ridge, lakes. Pentax MX, Oct 2020.

Lake Vera. Pentax MX, Oct 2020.

The Baron. Pentax MX, Oct 2020.

Quiet Places

“I remember an old man of this island… That old man never left this island… That old man mirrored everything that was good and is still good on this island… That old man whom I knew so well was conserved as I always want that mountain to be. He lived all his years here, in this island. It was really the only place he knew. He was a true part of this quiet land because he reflected its integrity. He is gone now but there is much of him still here.”


-Nick Evans, from the Introduction to ‘Quiet Places’.

Magenta Afternoon. Pentax MX, Ektar 100, Feb 2022.

“And in the still, quiet nights, feeling the shelter of the enclosing tent, one is even more aware than in the daytime of the vastness of the wilderness.” - Ellen Miller, Quiet Places

Pandanifolia, Crooked Spire. Pentax MX, Ektar 100, Feb 2022.

“It is a quiet that emanates from the land itself and its roots are deep.”

-Ellen Miller, Quiet Places

View toward the Cracroft Valley. Pentax MX, Ektar 100, Feb 2022.

The Arena

“A work of art is good when it is necessary, when it comes from a need. This is the only way to judge it, by its origins…

Maybe it will turn out our vocation is to be an artist. If that is so, take up that destiny and bear it, its burden, its greatness - without ever asking what reward from the outside it may bring you. For he who creates must be a world unto himself, must find everything inside himself and in the Nature to which he devotes himself.”


Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a young poet, Letter 1, 1903

The Arena, left.

The Arena, middle

The Arena, right.

The Arena. Three frame panorama. Hasselblad 500CM, Panf 50 Plus, Nov 2023. Taken in the South-West of lutruwita / Tasmania.
Displayed at the Long Gallery in nipaluna / Hobart as part of the 140th Annual Exhibition of the Art Society of Tasmania.
Exhibition wraps up at 4pm, 15th September 2024.

Along the old Lake Pedder track...

The old track to Lake Pedder can still be found. The trailhead is just past the Sentinels on the Gordon River Road. The start is not obvious, but once you start heading up toward the correct saddle, the track shows up where you need it. The track descends and follows the Swampy Creek valley, then climbs up and terminates on the south-west end of the Coronets.

Bonnie’s Bucket and one of the tentacles of the current ‘Lake Pedder’. Pentax MX, Delta 100, Sep 2023.

We walked along the old Lake Pedder Track in September 2023 with a friend of mine, Samara. I convinced her that we should take a fifty year old A-frame canvas tent as our only shelter. With some reluctance, she agreed. We ended up having a rest day on the second day of the trip, the day intended for summiting the Coronets, due to some classic south-west weather blowing in. Most things that were inside the tent ended up a bit damp. Well okay, maybe some things got saturated. Samara was justifiably grumpy with me. And my ultimate punishment was that the film I shot came out water damaged.

But now as I look back at these photos, and reflect on the drowning of Lake Pedder in 1972, it seems like the film itself is weeping at the loss of Tasmania’s most beautiful lake.

Looking back at the Sentinels. Pentax MX, Delta 100, Sep 2023.

But I’d rather end on a quirky than a tragic note.

I found a can of beer while we were out there, a solid day’s walk from the road! It was a good old cascade lager, in a blue can. Best of all, it hadn’t been cracked. It was on the ridgeline of the Coronets. I stepped a few metres off track to take some photos and as I went to set up my tripod, there it was. A full can of beer on the ground. I had to rub my eyes to believe it.

Well I couldn’t quite leave the can there, and there was no way I would carry the can out in full, so the only sensible thing left to do was to drink it. It was a bit flat, but it tasted like beer. It tasted good.

-A.S. 7/9/24, Lenah Valley

‘Lake Pedder’ from the Coronets, exactly where the three and a half kilometre long quartzite beach rests beneath 15 metres of dark water. Terminal peak on RH. Pentax MX, Delta 100, Sept 2023.

The Sound of Water

“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.


Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.” - Bruce Lee

Newtown Rivulet. Hasselblad 500CM, Portra 400, Aug 2024.

Mt Sarah Jane. Hasselblad 500CM, Portra 400, Aug 2024.

Buttongrass Moorland, Hasselblad 500CM, Portra 400, Aug 2024.

Angel Falls. Hasselblad 500CM, Portra 400, Aug 2024.

Ignorance and Apathy

The other day a friend of mine asked me what ignorance and apathy meant.
I told him I don’t know and I don’t care. ;)

Boulders and the Sea. Hasselblad 500CM, Cinestill 400D, July 2024.

A lot of the world’s troubles can be traced back to a lack of understanding and caring. Either people don’t know any better or they don’t care to do any better. Learning and caring come naturally to some but are elusive to others.

There have certainly been times in my life when I should have known better or should have cared more but I didn’t. Some days I wake up and I am full of quiet hope, ready to meet the world and to do my best. Other days, I wake up and I can’t motivate myself to care deeply about anything and I make a series of decisions that are detrimental to my own and the world’s well-being.

Why is it so hard to stay consistently true to our higher goals?

Rock Garden. Hasselblad 500CM, Cinestill 400D, July 2024.

Some of us know better, but fail to care enough to do better. Without shifting responsibility for our own actions, perhaps one reason for this is because we live in an insane society. Who can remain sane when the whole world has gone mad?

Humanity is on a trajectory of self destruction; we are passengers on a bus hurtling towards a cliff and our driver has their foot on the gas. The timeline of this self destruction is quite long and spans many generations; perhaps that’s why the annihilation of life on Earth doesn’t appear as pressing a matter as the rise of interest rates on our mortgages.

We are all witnessing the great tragedy of diminishing biodiversity, catastrophic climate change, overpopulation, and a decimation of the natural systems that support our own existence. And despite having a solid understanding of what the issues are and what some of the potential solutions may look like, as a society, as a species, we are unable to act in a coordinated way to implement those solutions. No matter how many ‘summits’ are held amongst the world’s leaders, emissions continue to increase, land is still being cleared, the oceans are still being exploited.

As an individual that is part of society, no matter how noble or well intentioned our actions are, we are all riding the big old ship of human destiny that seems bound for a terrible maelstrom. Perhaps this is why I wake up some days and I simply don’t care any more. I know that no matter what my actions are, nature is going to be destroyed by myself and my fellow humans as members of an insane society that is founded on the unsustainable use of limited natural resources. Why bother getting out of bed when my existence proliferates the imbalance of the world?

Lemon Rock. Hasselblad 500CM, Cinestill 400D, July 2024.

But then something akin to spirit awakens in me and I refuse to give in to apathy. While there is life, there is hope, and while there is hope there is a possibility of altering the trajectory of the future. The prerequisite for change is the belief in its possibility. Even though there are some days when I want to give in and stop caring completely, a little spark always remains and it gives me enough to carry on, to keep caring.

I may live in an insane society, in a horrendously skewed, imperfect world, but I am alive and this is the only life that I know, (or remember). And like Neil Young, I believe ‘it is better to burn out than to fade away’. So I’m going to keep the fire alive, and leave ignorance and apathy to those who don’t know and to those who don’t care.

-A.S. 24/8/24, Lenah Valley.

Clairvoyance

Clairvoyance /klɛːˈvɔɪəns/: the ability to see beyond the range of ordinary perception.

Zincworks, Derwent River. Hasselblad 500CM, Cinestill 400, July 2024.

In the current ‘age of reason’, science has become the new religion. We hold science as our trump card, the method of determining the truth that is to be trusted above all others.

And yet a lot of people still believe in the idea of the soul. That there is an essence of our being which transcends the physical, or ordinary realm and perhaps continues to exist somehow after our bodies have long been eaten by the worms and our bones have become dust and our lives, deeds and actions have long been forgotten.

There are many ways of determining the truth. Science has been proven to be reliable method, and is now the trusted method. But there are things that are outside the realms of science. Science is based on a series of theories and experiments. If a theory is unable to be ‘tested’, then it’s conjecture, philosophy, and to some, not worth knowing.

And yet, our stories, and dreams imply that there is a world beyond the world of knowing that we are all familiar with. There are stories of people who are able to perceive a deep truth in things in ways that are difficult to understand with a logical brain. There are stories of traditional healers, shamans traveling through the spirit world to solve problems in the real world.To retrieve souls that have been stolen or lost. Stories, dreams, imaginings. Intangible, unfalsifiable, mysterious as the morning fog on the river.

I used to believe that science was the only way of understanding things. The older I get, the more I start to think that there are many ways of knowing things. Some people have a logical brain, some people have an intuitive brain. There are different kinds of problems out there that require different approaches to be solved and often a problem may have multiple solutions.

Zincworks, Derwent River, Hasselblad 500CM, Cinestill 400, July 2024.

Clairvoyance in my mind, doesn’t need the introduction of ‘supernatural’ abilities to be viable. Clairvoyance could simply be the ability to make a prediction about the future that would seem uncanny to the observer. It could theoretically be done with normal senses, but perhaps with a sprinkle of extraordinary insight. I don’t think we need to step outside the laws of physics to allow for the possibility of some people out there having an incredible sensitivity toward the world, and perceiving a greater depth to reality than others.

The difference between science and clairvoyance might be smaller than we expect. Clairvoyance means possessing the ability to predict the occurrence of certain events. But isn’t this what science does as well? The supercomputers that run the meteorologist’s models are able to predict the future beyond what might be possible with the human senses alone. But to the person without a background in physics, mathematics and computer programming, the process of modern weather forecasting is inherently mysterious.

In the same way, a particularly ‘intuitive’ or perceptive person may be able to pick up on subtle clues to discern truths, notice patterns and make predictions that may appear astounding to someone who is bound to a purely logical existence.

The need to explain every occurrence in rational terms has become the current zeitgeist, spirit of the times. But some parts of the universe are inherently irrational, unpredictable, chaotic.

And sometimes, the universe can surprise us.

-A.S. 17/8/24

Zincworks, Derwent River. Hasselblad 500CM, Cinestill 400, July 2024.

The Source of the Nile...

“I thought back to a dream I had nearly forgotten; to be a wilderness photographer, living the simple, quiet life. Not getting involved in politics, activism, the world. Just focusing on one thing. Taking photos. Paying attention to the shifting of the light. Doing my quiet work and nothing else. Removing myself from the mad rush society expects of us. Relinquishing everything else, just focusing on the thing that matters. Getting to know Tasmania, inch by inch at a time. Spending my days wandering in quiet solitude. Being one with the land. Giving up fighting the fights I cannot win. Printing each image only once, to represent the moment that will never happen again. Becoming what I must be.”

-A.S. 19.6.2024, near the source of the Nile River

Reflection in waterway. Near the source of the Nile River, Ben Lomond Plateau. Lutruwita / Tasmania. Hasselblad 500CM, Cinestill 400, July 2024.

The Southern End of the Ben Lomond Plateau. Lutruwita / Tasmania. Hasselblad 500CM, Cinestill 400, July 2024.

Proud Pinnacle, near Stacks Bluff. Lutruwita / Tasmania. Hasselblad 500CM, Cinestill 400, July 2024.