Favourites

This photograph is a long standing favourite of mine.  It was taken in 1998 I think and was part of my opening exhibition at the Leonard Metcalf Gallery in Katoomba in 2000. 

I took it with the Linhof I talked about last week.  This fern is off the main track in an approach track to a canyon on Newnes Plateau. One of my favourite places to explore.

I put this photograph in my survey for possible postcards. A hundred people later, finally someone likes it.  My favourite photograph virtually comes last in my popularity survey.  What’s wrong with my judgement?  Or is it that I strive for something that the masses just don’t understand?   Masses? Most to be precise.

You should have seen the excitement the moment that one person choose it. I was brimming. 

This is what a colour photograph is to me. This one is a symphony of greens.  I had a fanciful idea that I could use these to promote the Greens. 

Years later, it is still a favourite. So do subtle and sublime.  Framed, it hangs proudly in my studio.

It’s film, Fuji Prova to be precise.  Never liked Velvia, the film that all the other landscape photographers love for its abstraction and intensification of colour.  It still is covereted and collected for its inevitable end of manufacturing.   Provia feels more natural to me. It has an accuracy in the greens that I adore and appreciate.

The 8 x 10 I recently acquired has a project developing.  Colour, large format, shot on Provia.  Picking up where I left off.   I think it will be rather slow to create.  Slower still to show. Next is to save for some film. And start taking it with me.  A few spare days in the Tarkine May see the first shots with it. 

Yes, the project suddenly is very clear.   The Greens.

The Greens, The Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, Photograph and text copyright ©️ Len Metcalf 2018