Winter comes –
I see it in my face,
days grow shorter.
Light is white
Except when it’s black
– clouds are grey.
Lines, lines, lines.
Lines radiate from my eyes
– laughter lines
All photos taken on the rock shelf at Shellharbour using a Chamonix 045F1 View Camera, Wollensak Velostigmat W.A. Ser. III f/9.5 6-1/4inch lens, on Fomapan 100, and developed in a mix of Xtol(1.3)+RO9(1.160).
Waterfall Creek meanders quietly through stands of salmon coloured angophoras, white scribbly gums and gymea lilies with their towering red flowers in spring, before dropping twice over the sandstone escarpment at National Falls to the rainforest far below.
Late in the afternoon shadows descend quickly under the escarpment, while on the plateau, by chance the sun picks out a tree or lily to highlight with its rays before falling beneath the horizon in the west.
Looking east from the edge, I imagine the early morning glow bathing the sandstone cliffs and falls, as I peer under its shining steps into the gloom.
Fading light only deepens the vertiginous illusion that I too might fall like water to the sun.
Photos taken with Chamonix 045F1 View Camera, Goerz Celor 7 inch f/4.5 (top photo) and Gundlach 5×8 Korona Anastigmat f/6.3 lenses, on Ilford Delta 100 film, and developed in RO9(1.50).
“Won’t you keep us from all harm
Wonderful redwood tree” – Van Morrison
It is hard not to imagine a journey through northern California, Oregon, Monterey, the Big Sur coast, and San Francisco without considering the influence of historical and cultural topographies. There are many possible routes: from the pioneers of the Oregon trail, to the paths of Kerouac and the Beats, modernist photographers such as the Westons or Adams, and musicians of the 60’s and 70’s that celebrated these places in their lyrics, influencing our consciousness.
I hadn’t expected however that in Orgeon and northern California there would be such strong legacies and remembrances of the depression programs of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Friends insisted that we should travel to Mt Hood and see the Timberline lodge with its incredible architecture, artworks, and tribute to job creation at a time of such economic need.
Driving down the Oregon coast we crossed several bridges which owed their construction to the vision of FDR, and in the redwoods at Prairie Creek his influence in conservation and tree planting programs is still celebrated. The broader community effort to preserve and save the redwood forests of northern California nearly 100 years ago today seems remarkable, yet today when we visit the USA it is the parks, forests and wilderness that attract us, and motivate others to conservation elsewhere in the world.
These quiet forests, with majestic groves deep within are places of incredible beauty and peace. Walking through Stout Grove I placed my hand on a redwood, felt the bark with my palm, and acknowledged my small age next to its. We worry about the things that might make us, or our age and nations great, yet some of these trees have witnessed much of recorded human history, and many have lived since at least the invention of the printing press. Their almost infinite presence gives us hope that we can live through harm, find hope and healing.
All photos taken with Chamonix 045F1, Rodenstock Apo-Sironar-S 150mm, on Delta 100 and developed in a mix of Xtol(1.3)+RO9(1.160).
Pounded by wild seas, cast upon rocks, and pushed high by storms, coves around Bass Point fill with shells. Some are whole, but most are fragments. Pieces are broken, and eroded by successive tides, revealing the patterns and structures of different species living by the sea.
An arabesque swirl catches my eye, as does the disk with a spiral, that differs from circles shining, unbreakable structures inside a barnacle, or wings remaining, and the surprise of a branch with leaves attached dried in the sun.
Every fragment, a memory of a past life or being. Each piece and pattern reminds me of my own existence, and the structures that shape my mind and spirit.
All photos taken using a Chamonix 045F1, with Rodenstock Ysaron 75mm lens, on Fomapan 100 film, and developed in a mix of Xtol(1.3)+paRodinal(1.160).
It has been about a year since I have been to Bombo. On my last visit I rolled my ankle on a rock, breaking a bone in my foot. Lately we have had heavy weather, so in a break between downpours, I headed to the old quarry at Bombo hoping that waves might be breaking over the sea walls.
Bombo seemingly was named after Thumbon, a local indigenous leader, at the time of the settlement of the Kiama district. When the railway was first built south from Sydney, it stopped just north of Kiama at Bombo, where the basalt quarries provided blue metal for concrete, building railway lines and roads.
Bombo headland has geological formations of hexagonal basalt columns of international significance, abutting sandstone formations, which have reversed magnetic polarities from a time when the North and South Magnetic Poles were reversed. Rocks of Permian age throughout the world show a reversed polarity and this unique formation is used for “intercontinental paleomagnetic correlation of Late Palaeozoic rock sequences.”
Quarrying began at Bombo headland in the 1880s. Basalt was carried to Sydney by dozens of small vessels known as the Stone Fleet until the railway line was built. The Irish miners employed to quarry the basalt, left rock columns and walls adjacent to the ocean protecting the works from the onslaught of the sea.
Today part of the old quarry is used for a sewerage plant, but that is largely concealed from the coastal walk that wends its way around the headland from Kiama via Bombo to the surf break known locally as The Boneyard, and then on to Jones Beach and Minnamurra.
On most days the headland is deserted, with the exception of seabirds watching for fish from the columns, just above the waves which pound along the walls.
Here and there a few broken columns reveal their hexagonal structure. Where waves crash through gaps, it seems as though the fortress wall has been breached.
The break in the wall opens a window to the ocean, clouds and the swirling tides.
On occasions the surging sea rushes over these formations, and once I got struck by water falling over the other side. Although the headland resembles a ruined fortress, or rock amphitheater for waves with seabirds as an audience, local children seemingly also call it Toothbrush Island.
Wave action shots were taken using Kodak TMax 400, except for the last one in series, which was made using Fomopan 100 along with the rest, using Toyo-View 45CF field camera with Nikkor-SW 90mm f/8 lens, and Tiffen Y12 filter. The film sheets were developed in a mix of Xtol (1:2) and Adonal (1:200).
Wheels in the tides. Left behind. Rusted. Time goes on measured in the tides of our feelings. High and low. Washed away leaving grains of rust to spread. One day…
Photos taken with Toyo-View 45CF field camera with Nikkor-W 135mm lens at f.64 and using Fuji FP-3000B45 instant film. Top photo taken at 1/125sec. Bottom photo at1/4 sec with Tiffen graduated neutral density filter and ND8 filter.
Peter de Graaff 