The Fear of Water

Fear exists to keep us safe. Without it, we would be tempted to jump off tall objects, pull the tail of large cats and take corners in our cars at a faster speed than advisable. Fear stops us from taking actions that may cost our lives. Some of the time.

Fear is good when it stops us becoming hurt, maimed or dead. Fear is bad when it comes to rule our lives. Fear is good when it makes us realise we are about to do something we are going to regret. Fear is bad when it stops us doing something that is within our ability and could lead to growth and development. Fear is good when it makes us realise we are about to walk into a trap. Fear is bad when it makes us treat other people as if they were inferior due to them being different. Fear is good when it makes you double check that your carabiner is locked before you hang off a cliff with it. Fear is bad when it makes you freeze during a crucial moment and you are unable to take action to save someone’s life. Fear is bad when it makes you treat other people badly because they are different to you. Fear is good when it helps you survive.

Fury River. Hasselblad 500CM, April 2023.

I have feared flowing water ever since I had a close call crossing the Howqua River in Victoria on a bushwalk and came close to being washed away. This happened over ten years ago. It seemed absurd at how quickly things turned from calm to chaos. One moment, I was in control, a moment later, the river was in control of me. The lesson at the time seemed to be, stay away from fast flowing water. And I did. For over ten years. But the time has come for me to face my fear of white water.

Gordon Gates. Hasselblad 500CM, June 2020.

To follow in the wake of the great Tasmanian wilderness photographers, I need to learn how to take long river journeys. Both Peter Dombrovskis and Olegas Truchanas knew how to paddle white water. They did it to access places that were not accessible otherwise. They understood the risks and took them anyway. Once, Olegas got washed down a waterfall on the Serpentine River and lost everything, including his pants. He had to walk out through the scrub by stepping through the arms of his raincoat.

Years later, Olegas drowned in the Gordon River, the river he was trying to save. He fell in while attempting to get out of his kayak on the river bank. After a three day search, which involved the building of a miniature dam with bulldozers to lower the river, Peter Dombrovskis was the one who spotted his body, wrapped around a tree. The year was 1972. * The Gordon Dam was completed in 1974.

In 1979, Peter Dombrovskis took the photograph Morning Mist, Rock Island Bend’. This image was used successfully in the campaign to save the Franklin River from being flooded by the proposed ‘Gordon-below-Franklin’ Dam. This dam was never built.

*From ‘The world of Olegas Truchanas’, Max Angus

-A.S. 26.10.24, Lenah Valley. 

The Gordon Gorge. Hasselblad 500CM, June 2020.

Xenophobia

Xenophobia: dislike of or prejudice towards people, cultures, customs that are foreign, or perceived as foreign. - Oxford English Dictionary

Danglers. Fuji X10, Melbourne, 2012.

I was talking to a friend recently who has been having a hard time since he has moved to lutruwita /Tasmania. He grew up in Sydney, speaks perfect English, he is a walking encyclopedia, and a gifted musician. He also has brown skin and a big black beard. When he walks down the street, the people of Hobart stare at him. Little children have come up to him and said ‘What are you doing here?”. Almost every day, he receives aggressive comments, ‘Go back to where you came from’. He has had eggs thrown at him while riding his bike. He has struggled to find work as a music teacher. Recently the attacks have gotten worse. As a result, my friend has decided to move interstate.

Facade. Fuji X10, Melbourne, 2012.

I am so disappointed in my fellow Hobartians. I never knew or imagined they could be so hostile to someone simply because they look different. Xenophobia is the word that comes to mind. Xenophobia is manifested as a ‘dislike of or prejudice towards people, cultures and customs that are foreign, or perceived as foreign’. One might say, xenophobia is the fear of the unknown. Some might say this is the greatest fear of all.

Cult(ure). Fuji X10, Melbourne, 2012.

The trouble with xenophobia is that it makes us mean towards people who have done nothing wrong. It’s one thing to punish someone who has done a terrible thing. But if you are self righteously being mean to a person simply because they look like someone who has done a terrible thing, well then you have fallen into the trap of a logical fallacy and you need a good kick up the bum yourself!

Dubstep, Drum and & Bass. Fuji X10, Melbourne, 2012.

The world is a big place and there are a lot of people in it. When will we learn how to behave toward each other with equality, fairness and respect? I keep waiting for the day when we start treating each other like the fellow human beings that we are. I might be waiting long.

-A.S. 26.10.24, Lenah Valley

 

Watchtower. Fuji X10, Melbourne, 2012.

The greatest fear of all

In this world

There are many fears.

 

Fear of spiders

Fear of snakes

Fear of heights

And fear of fakes.

 

Fear of losing,

Fear of pain,

Fear of hunger,

Or being slain.

 

But the greatest fear

There ever was

is the fear of

the unknown.

-A.S. 26.10.24, Lenah Valley

Misty Turrets. Pentax MX, Pan F 50, Nov 2020.

Uncertain Descent. Pentax MX, Panf 50, Nov 2020.

Rock Head. Pentax MX, Panf 50. Nov 2020.

The spine of the prince. Pentax MX, Panf 50, Nov 2020.

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.