To absolutely devastating effect during Holga Week, I firstly decided to try some components of a digital Holga kit on my Holga 120N: macro attachment, tele and wide converter. For the macro shot I simply guessed at the recommended distance marked on the lens attachment from the object I was photographing. The film used was Kodak TMax 100 and it was developed in a mix of Pyrocat-HD (1.1.100) + Adonal (1.100) for good measure. Sometimes I prefer to use the 6×4.5 frame with the 120N.

These shoreline photos were taken on the black sand beach at The Shallows just south of Shellharbour.

Urchin, shell and stone (macro)

The loader (tele)

Rocks and tide (wide)

For Holga Week I also shot a roll of Efke R50 in my Holga-120WPC which I stand developed in Adonal(1.100). These photos were taken at Minnamurra and the deserted ocean pool at Bulli POint.

Rangoon Island

The sky was clear when we left the beach near Red Point taking the trail through the woods to Hare Point and Carama Inlet. Walking through woodlands parallel to the beach we were out of the breeze, and could enjoy the first of the wattle scattered near stands of young banksias and gum trees.

Arriving at Carama Inlet at low tide we walked over strap weed mounds piled high by wind and waves on the beach. The rocks were covered in unopened oysters. A testament to the quiet isolation of this hidden corner of Jervis Bay. Coming around the corner onto Hare Point the full force of the strengthening gale coming across the bay hit us. To the south rain squalls were visible over Point Perpendicular, and a storm front extending across to distant Pigeon House Mountain.

It was going to be a long walk into the wind, face down…

Deep beneath the Illawarra escarpment, where the Macquarie Rivulet exits the rainforest into farmland, is a world of tall trees, vines, fallen logs with mosses, and boulders covered in lichens. It is place where the sun barely penetrates onto the forest floor in winter, always feels damp and smells of decay. Typically, the sort of environment where the camera viewfinder, or ground glass will fog up because of humidity and condensation.

I decided this might be the place to take roll of expired Aerochrome in my Olympus OM-1 with G. Zuiko 50mm f/1.4 lens. For a filter I had recently purchased a Soviet Y12 filter by LZOS, and also had 12mm extension tube in my pocket in case there were some macro opportunities. Many of the images were exposed hand held using a shutter speed of around 1/15s and fairly wide apertures due to poor light. I always find it…

I bought this marvellous camera about two years ago. It is far from being in mint condition, but still works beautifully. Sometimes provenance can be more important that looks.

The Kine Exakta is regarded as being one of the world’s first SLR cameras, and this variant spelt with a “c” was probably exported to the USA. It was designed to use 35mm film that had become standard in the cinema, hence the name Kine. It was manufactured by the legendary Ihagee camera company in Dresden, which was largely destroyed during World War II.

Mine is an early postwar version of the camera. The differences between it and the prewar models are fairly minor. The lens is a f/3.5 50mm Tessar lens manufactured by Carl Zeiss in Jena. The red T indicates that it was coated. The focusing distances on the lens are measured in feet.

All photos were taken around…

Invariably, there is a film that has been sitting in the fridge for a while needing a camera to roll in.

It could be treasured a bit longer, left in that dark trove and not moved, but the world has called. Somehow it seems like the perfect film for pinhole, with its fine grain, high contrast, colour saturation, and even suits a little xpro. So into the Holga WPC a very expired roll of Fujichrome T64 was loaded, then shot.

Although landscape has its challenges, photographing a horse feeding at sunset using a pinhole camera with exposures of around a minute has its own reward. Sure, one can sit patiently in deep contemplation for 14 minutes by a creek in a rainforest waiting for an exposure to run down, but with a horse there is a vicarious thrill. If it is hungry, it will ignore you, and the cable release…

Painfully, I have become occasionally obsessed with mapping the spatial relationship of places to astronomical phenomena. The ephemeris is the perfect device for me. It allows me to determine when, and where, to position myself within a landscape to optimise the necessary impact of celestial events. In my imagination, I search for landmarks and aspects, that might bring me closer to understanding the land, its seasons, and hopes of dreamed journeys to the future from the past.

For the winter solstice, on the eve of our longest night, the heavenly orb set between the outstretched arms of Honeymoon Bay. This lunar cycle began with a rare full moon known as the honeymoon. As the sun dropped beneath the clouds, it seemed there was an elephant to be seen illuminated among them, trumpeting the start of longer days. Who knows, perhaps it is Ganesh to enrich us, or simply an elephant…

The Shoalhaven River descends from headwaters in high granite country, wending its way through the deep wilderness sandstone gorges it has cut, before leaving the escarpment to reach its floodplain and the sea. Not far from exiting its lower gorge, the river passes through Coolendel, beneath the Bugong Plateau. Here Bugong Creek joins the main river after descending through dark rainforests. Not far upstream, the Kangaroo River and its Valley of the same name joins the Shoalhaven Gorge – one of only seven totally enclosed valleys in the world.

During the afternoon we had been loitering in the rainforest along Bugong Creek. Above one pool, was a seemingly anthropomorphic old tree, that appeared to have the torso and legs of animal, sitting, waiting, on a rock. Leaving the rainforest for the plateau, Melody and I, reached the outlook above Coolendel not long before sundown. In the rainforest I had seen…

A few weeks ago Melody and I stayed overnight at the Bay of Plenty Lodges, at the tip of the Bherwerre Peninsula in Booderee National Park. From the nearby escarpment, rainfall drains via Tomerong and Wandandian Creeks into St Georges Basin, and then escapes with the tide to the sea through Sussex Inlet at the end of Bherwerre Beach.

The traditional owners of this land, the Yuin people, had names for this place that seem far more enchanting, than postcolonial remembrances of places half a world away. Bherwerrae, the lake, and its nearby beach, mean simply Bay of Plenty, or place with a “lot of fish”. Surrounding the lake, and in the peninsula between it and the sea, are sand dunes, marshes, and woodlands recovering from fires. I suspect that in the darks of summer, when the moon is new, there are plenty of prawns to be caught in the…

In the wilderness – Buckenbowra River

Deep in the Monga National Park are the headwaters of the Mongarlowe and Buckenbowra Rivers. Whilst the Mongarlowe River flows behind the Budawangs into rugged country covered by snow gums, the clear Buckenbowra flows down the escarpment into a rainforest wilderness before finally reaching the Tasman Sea.

Mongarlowe River

Between the headwaters of these rivers, near the edge of the escarpment are forests of tree ferns and plumwoods. Plants so ancient that pollen spores have been found in Antarctica, from when Australia was once joined to it in Gondwanaland. One of these magnificent stands of tree ferns and plumwoods is known as Penance Grove.

Penance Grove

It seems that once, thieves would cut and steal ferns from this forest, when it was unprotected, to sell in nurseries to grace suburban gardens.The stumps of cut ferns can still be seen in Penance Grove.

I have…