EXHIBITION
Balmoral Beach
1st Nov to 28th Dec 2022
Open daily from 8am to 9pm.
Participating in
To see the images, go to In View of Change
This exhibition has now closed.
If there are images on this website for which you want to see the framed prints,
call Les on 0416101819, or email lirwig@yahoo.com
To purchase framed prints, mostly 40 cm high, limited to edition of 4
or discuss other sizes or framing options, see Contact and Purchase
_____________________________________“ ... drink in the beauty
and wonder at the meaning of what you see.”
Rachel Carson, pioneer environmentalist, 1965
In View of Change celebrates the beauty of our natural world, with images made in camera rather than created by subsequent digital manipulation. The exhibition honours individuals and grass-roots organisations whose actions are a beacon of hope for ecological improvement, and the photographers whose work helped inspire a sea-change in community views about the environment, pioneered in Australia by Olegas Truchanas and Peter Dombrovskis, who said: “Photography is, quite simply, a means of communicating my concern for the beauty of the Earth.“
The exhibition includes 4 series:
Sea-Change
The transitory reflection of sky on beach sand as a wave recedes, an image obliterated seconds later by the next incoming wave. Some images show footprints, in contemplation of our fragile ecology.
“Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.” —Henry David Thoreau
How High the Moon
The moon in Australia, mostly dawn moonsets rather than dusk moonrises. Most images were made during Covid restrictions.
‘How High the Moon’, refers to the song made famous by guitarist Les Paul. After 18 months of rehabilitation following an accident and with ongoing disabilities, he said “The long recovery period was quite a challenge, and also a blessing because it gave me a chance to think, and read, and plan, and dream.” That process resulted in his invention of the electric guitar and multitrack recording, with an enduring impact on modern music; a lesson in dealing creatively with adversity, in changing wounds into wisdom.
Perception
Enjoying the luminous dance of little wings from the whispered flutter of insects in night-time lamplight is an ongoing joy, which started during Covid restrictions. A Perception images was selected for the Head On Vision 2020 book and exhibition showing the challenges of and responses to 2020 and is a Highly Honoured Winner in the Art of Nature Category of Nature’s Best Photography International Awards in 2023. Other winners at naturesbestphotography.org/
Rising Up
‘Rising Up’ refers to both the tall eucalypt trunks, captured with camera movement, and the leaf regrowth around the trunks after bush fires.
A 'Rising Up' image was selected as one of the 9 finalists in the Botanical section of the Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year in 2022 . This iamge appears in their book and was exhibited at the South Australian Museum and the Australian Museum in Sydney.
In View of Change honours the grassroots organisations and individuals whose actions are a beacon of hope for ecological improvement.
Governments and Local Councils and more importantly individuals and communities are beginning to take action, driven by a groundswell of changing community opinion about the importance of addressing the ecological horrors of our time. Renewable energy resources are beginning to be more common - and cheaper – than those dependent on fossil fuel. And there are strong examples of how quickly environments can regenerate, both overseas and in Australia [ conservation areas, deserts and farmland ] if we do what is right.
Like Climate Change, another consequence of ecological disruption, is the increase in infections, such as Covid, that jump the species barrier from animals to humans.
“Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world.” Arundhati Roy: ' The pandemic is a portal’
"If our descendants are alive and well in a hundred years … it will be because we were, in this era, able to articulate visions of life on Earth that did not result in their destruction … ways of life are possible in which human beings not only thrive but also repair damage and even increase biodiversity and beauty of the planet." Lisa Wells, quoted by Climate Scientist Joelle Gergis in ‘….a climate scientist’s path through grief towards hope’ .
I acknowledge and pay respect to the past, present and future Traditional Custodians and Elders of Country on which these photographs were made.