What solace can be struck from rock

The photographs in this exhibition were taken at Mt Hay over the year 2020, after the Black Summer fire. The poignancy of Sylvia Plath’s poetry, and that of some other poets too, informed the experience of capturing the images and framing this exhibition.

At first the stripped, burnt-out landscape was desolate and seemed to carry the weight of our sorrow and anxiety at this time. After traversing the area around Mt Hay with camera and tripod in all types of weather, across the seasons and at all times of the day, the stony hills, cliffs and plateaus came to evoke endurance and sustenance, with moments of stunning delight. 

The intensity the 2020 fire revealed elements of the landscape normally hidden, and the subsequent rain periods created a “sculpture park” of ephemeral water and stone at the edge of the Grose Valley. 

Colin’s s work harnesses the mood and atmosphere around his subjects, seeking to evoke an emotional or subconscious response in the viewers. In this exhibition, Colin chased the quality of light and shadow in order to anticipate suggestive images, rather than striving for complete clarity and definition. 

Colin uses vintage cameras, 35mm and medium format to take B&W photographs, and develops and prints them using traditional chemistry and darkroom techniques. Analogue Photography has constraints and pushing these in low or angled light, and in the darkroom, produces not–wholly–controlled artefacts. These felicitous effects can be a joy. 

This exhibition acknowledges the country of the Dharug where the pictures were taken and pays respect to their elders past and present.