User:Garyh
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Website: [www.tinyurl.com/gcx2k]
== Gary Rowan Higgins • Photographer ==
My interest in photography can be traced back to the early 1980s when I used a number of cameras to record my travels cycling extensively solo around Victoria and Tasmania. At the time, my technical grasp of photography was at best rudimentary, and losses of, and major mishaps with cameras were common. It was not until after a solo trip to Norfolk Island in the winter of 1995 that I set about developing and refining skills. At this time I switched from using print film to transparency film. The lush, small volume work produced today is far removed from the pedestrian images of rolling green hills, browsing cows and hibiscus in flower as keenly observed around Norfolk Island in 1995.
My methodology closely parallels that employed by the late Tasmanian photographer Peter Dombrovskis (1945-1996), but with a definite personal style of photograph that has developed over a long period of time. The use of an ultra-wide angle perspective control lens in my imaging effectively mimics the rise/fall and swing tilt and tow movements available in the larger 6x4.5 format immortalised in Dombrovskis' enigmatic commodification of Tasmania's remote wilderness areas. However, in the smaller 35mm format, the introduced PC effects are quite tricky, requiring precise control and concerted observation, without which a beautiful image becomes a lamentable travesty.
For the techies, equipment in use is a [Canon EOS 1N] ('Brutus') and an often-repaired EOS 5 ('The Sheriff') for colour production work. An old and sentimentally valued Olympus XA-II is usually loaded with print film for grab shots on the fly (especially useful for reccés). Various ultra-wide to tele lenses are of Canon's 'L' series and filmstock is Fuji Velvia (RVP 50 / 100F) with the occasional use of Provia F (RDP-III); both of these films are exposed along a modified exposure matrice to produce a transparency that gives the best possible Superchrome print. The quality of light, together with faitfhful colour reproduction are pre-requisites for all images. B&W work is produced on Ilford Delta and is also printed to the Superchrome process for maximum archival performance. Digitally printed (Pegasus) images have consistently failed critical appraisal in many areas, particularly this process's narrow colour gamut and doubtful archival permanence.
In terms of subject matter, I am primarily attracted to the dynamics of water, hence, viewers will notice a significant amount of my work features water in one way or another. Water, however, is not the only subject that I seek out: subjects with simple composition and beauty also feature. In some images, I have employed the effects possible with perspective control lenses (particularly in the two images "Abalone Shell at Bells Beach" and "Wreck Beach"; these two (a third is the image of "Hopetoun Falls, Aire Heritage River") challenge the attention of the viewer to concentrate on the small, not so obvious details within the image.
Many of the places I have featured have been visited more than once, for example, I have visited Tasmania 18 times since 1994 (and almost every time, it has rained...). Within Victoria, Beauchamp Falls (and some quite dark nearby myrtle glooms), deep within the sprawling Great Otway National Park in Victoria's south, something like 30 times.
In the future, I will include on this simple web gallery more scenes from Tasmania and a new collection of my travels in Te Wai Pounamu — New Zealand's South Island. This project will evolve as time allows.
For now, come along on an exposé of some of the special places that have earned—through better or worse circumstances—my personal whimsical classification of a "Bloody Good Tour!"...
So, what do others think of my wanderings through the bush? Here's a quote from a battle-worn frequent flyer in the form of my niece:
"Well, we've had rain, rain, hail, rain, rain, hail, wind, hail, rain, rain and hail. In Gary's words, 'a bloody marvellous tour!'
