Beta issuu 01

01 SepT 2012

developments in photography

All content on this website is Š 2012 of the Ballarat International Foto Biennale and participating artists, and may not be reproduced without the express written permission of the BIFB. Inc save for fair dealing for the purposes of research, study, criticism, review, reporting news. All other rights are reserved.

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Contents

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Judith Crispin The Cartographer’s Illusion

Lauren Simonutti 8 rooms, 7 mirrors, 6 clocks, 2 minds & 199 panes of glass

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20 John Gollings Bushfire Aerials

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112 Colin Page Gossamer

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32 Tim Griffith Immediate Future

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126 Michael Norton Rivers Of Light

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44 MALEONN Little Flagman

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134 Kara Rasmanis Unlocking the secrets of flight

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Gerhard Jörén First Deadly Sin

Karena Goldfinch

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Slavo Decyk Cyclographs

neil cash The Shape of Music

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Welcome to the launch edition of ‘BETA – developments in photography’. It is our great pleasure to present this exciting new initiative - a small but significant step in our long term aim to champion the future directions of contemporary photography to the broadest possible audience, both here in Australia and overseas.

BETA will provide a vehicle for Australian photographers to take their work to the world, as well as exposing Australian audiences to some of the most exciting and cutting edge photography on the international stage.

As a biennial festival of photography BIFB is limited to presenting around 25 shows in our Core Exhibition Program every two years. BETA will allow us to present the work of many more artists with three or four editions every year. Our editorial direction will mirror the philosophy on which the Ballarat International Foto Biennale has built its reputation - to celebrate the diversity of photography by presenting work that reveals all its styles and genres.

In our launch issue we celebrate the Ballarat International Foto Biennale by presenting shows from both BIFB’09 and BIFB’11.

Artists from both Core and Fringe Exhibition Programs are featured.

Subsequent issues will feature major spreads of up to twenty pages by four or five artists, with introductory folios from a further four or five emerging photographers. As with our Core Program philosophy BETA will present a mix of photography from Australia and around the world. From time to time BETA will introduce essays on major issues that affect contemporary photography as well as the occasional tribute to one of our number who has blazed the trail for all those who follow. We look forward to receiving high quality submissions from photographers with well developed bodies of work for inclusion in future issues.

We are also extremely proud to introduce you to the editor of BETA, Heidi Romano. Heidi is well qualified to take on the role with her background in graphic design, photography and as publisher of her own online photography magazine ‘Unless You Will’ (UYW) currently at issue #22. Heidi is a Board member of the BIFB.

So please take your time to turn the pages and enjoy the works presented in our launch issue, and feel free to share it with your friends and colleagues as we embark upon our online journey to celebrate developments in contemporary photography.

Jeff Moorfoot Festival Director On behalf of the Board of the Ballarat International Foto Biennale Inc.

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Sommernachtstraum

The Cartographer’s Illusion

Judith Crispin www.flickr.com/photos/hsien-ku

The Cartographer’s Illusion appeared at BIFB’11 with the assistance of Photonet Gallery and Kodak

My love of photography comes from the desire to preserve the inner life of things, to somehow capture the act of living, to saturate inhuman things with the poetry of human experience.

My photographs are a record of my living – proof that I have lived, that once I loved this person, this moment of light or that object, that my eye rested on them. For me, the photograph is both the map and the territory, the axis at which there is no longer a real or its mirror but only an act of seeing.

And because our own memories, our own experiences, overlay the act of seeing itself, the photograph becomes like a prism which transforms the light which passes through it – a language of symbols carved in light. Each of our lives is unique. My wish is to capture the imperfection and strangeness of the life I have been given, and yes, its beauty and sadness too.

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Like a young fig tree you were, on the cliffs.

And when I passed by you rang in the mountains.

Like the young fig tree, brilliant and blind.

Like a fig tree you are.

Like an ancient fig.

And I pass, and you greet me with dry leaves and silence.

Like a fig tree you are that the lightning has aged.

(Miguel Hernรกndez)

The High Wall

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In the west the falling light still glows, and the clustered housetops glitter in the sun, but here Death is already chalking the doors with crosses, and calling the ravens, and the ravens are flying in.

(Anna Akhmatova)

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Ravens

The Mountain got tired of sitting Amongst a snoring crowd inside of me And rose like a ripe sun Into my eye.

My soul gave my heart a brilliant idea So Hafiz is rising like a Winged diamond.

(Hafiz)

Winged diamond

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Near the wall of a house painted to look like stone, I saw visions of God. A sleepless night that gives others a headache gave me flowers opening beautifully inside my brain.

And he who was lost like a dog will be found like a human being and brought back home again.

Love is not the last room: there are others after it, the whole length of the corridor that has no end.

(Yehuda Amichai)

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Love is not the last room

She is standing on my eyelids And her hair is wound in mine, She has the form of my hands, She has the colour of my eyes, She is swallowed by my shadow Like a stone against the sky.

(Paul Eluard)

La Berceuse

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We were growing old. He was the leaves, I was the flowing spring.

He was a sliver of sun, I was the depth underneath.

He was death, and I was the wisdom to live.

Time showed his face in the shadows, the face of a faun; His laughter did not mock us, and I accepted time.

I loved how the wind rose, shouldering the dark, Loved how even dying in the deep black spring Would barely stir the pool where the ivy drank.

I loved: I stood submerged in the endless dream.

(Yves Bonnefoy)

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Voix

You will grow old And, fading amid the color of the trees, Casting a slower shadow on the wall, Being at last, in your soul, the threatened earth, You will take the book up where you had left it, You will say, These were the last obscure words.

(Yves Bonnefoy)

Soliloquy

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The blind man who stands on the bridge, grey, as if a markstone of nameless realms, perhaps he is the one thing that remains the same, around which from afar the star-hour turns, the heavenly body’s quiet center.

For all stumbles and struts and rushes about him.

He is the motionless one, the just one, placed in a confusion of many ways; The dark entrance to the underworld among a race of superficial beings.

(Rilke)

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Pont du carrousel

Judith Crispin is a composer, poet and photographer. She holds several international prizes for music, has exhibited photographs in Germany, Australia and France.

Her publications include poetry as well as a number of musicological books and articles.

She is the current Director of Manning Clark House, Canberra.

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autumn breezes spin small fish hung to dry from beach house eaves (Buson)

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Haiku

439m E145° 19’ 24.13’ S037° 33’36.17’

www.gollings.com.au

Bushfire Aerials

John Gollings

These personal photographs of the burnt Victorian landscape cover the path of Black Saturday’s firestorm in 2009.

While flying above it John saw another dimension in the aftermath, a forest recomposed to arid dots and strokes, the exposed tracks and roads of man’s intrusion and an uncanny acknowledgement of the prescience of Aboriginal landscape painting, an aerial mapping of narrative and myth.

John’s profoundly deep and unique view of a transitory landscape is surely one of the most beautiful interpretations of earth’s duality - the simultaneous destruction and rebirth of our land.

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506m E145° 21’56.29’ S037° 36’47.84’

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722m E145° 13’ 24’48’ S037° 28’25.94’

586m E145° 12’31.12 S037° 25’15.95’

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739m E145° 11’ 01.45’ S037° 18’56.42’

875m E145° 12’31.85’ S037° 25’ 15.55’

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876m E145° 12.31.12 S037° 25’15.95’

538m E145° 17’ 17.70’ S037° 31’13.03’

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570m E145° 16’ 58.25’ S037° 31’31.25’

John Gollings is a photographer specialising in the built environment.

Since taking his first photographs at age 11, Gollings has cemented his place among the top architectural photographers in the world, renowned for documenting both ancient and modern cities.

After studying arts and architecture, Gollings began to work as a freelance advertising photographer, specialising in fashion and travel. As his contemporaries in architecture developed their practices, so the amount of architectural photography increased.

He is particularly known for his technique of architectural photography at night using partial artificial light over a period of time.

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www.timgriffith.com

Immediate Future

Tim Griffith

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Prominent structures stand as evidence of the technical achievements and artistic aspirations of our forebears. Even through the most ambivalent portrayal, these structures can be recognised, resonating in our collective memory, reinforcing our link to past civilizations with stone and mortar, wood and steel.

Truly iconic buildings transcend attempts to encapsulate the experience of them in a single, defining photograph. With the recent rise in popularity of architecture around the world, many new buildings, especially those in the public domain, have been pressed into the service of local and national authorities as draw cards for political and financial gain. A building in this service no longer has the opportunity to gracefully embed itself into the general consciousness of the society that surrounds it. It can no longer wait to be cherished. It must be loved now.

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Great buildings have always provided lasting windows into the societies that produced them. .................................................................................

As a result, these new buildings are sold as the instant cultural fix to today’s insatiable society and in the scramble to gain attention from an easily distracted public, those who control this new architecture, these new icons, are creating a need for a new and compelling imagery to glorify, or perhaps merely justify their claims. In today’s visually overloaded culture, a strong, suggestive image will define and dictate the way a building, product or political point of view is accepted and absorbed into society. Photographs now create and define the icons of our time.

They are the new reality. The photograph is the building.

Paradoxically, images of the new world often gain more acceptance when cloaked in the comfortable patina of the old. In these photographs, the collective memory of past visions of the future is re-asserted and re-applied to question the way in which we are now being sold thepresent.

As our society moves with literally blinding speed towards our immediate future, these images seek to re-examine not only the validity of what we are being given to see but also the appropriateness of the very architecture itself.

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Tim Griffith has been photographing architecture and design related images for over twenty years. ..................................................................................

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Melbourne born and working from offices in San Francisco and Singapore, Tim travels extensively on assignments in Asia, Europe and North America for a number of the world’s leading design firms.

His inventive and graphic images are included in several private and public art collections, widely published in a diverse range of international design journals and sought after by corporate and advertising clients around the world.

Recent projects include the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, currently the world’s tallest structure, the Al Hamra Firdous Tower in Kuwait and the Sacramento International Airport Terminal B in California.

Recent Bay Area projects include Stanford’s Li Kai Shing Center, The Presidio Landmark and the Ed Roberts Campus in Berkeley.

In April 2010, Tim was voted Australia’s Top Architectural Photographer by his professional peers. His recent work has been honored at the 2012 Australian Professional Photography Awards where he was named Commercial Photographer of the Year for the fourteenth time.

At the American Photographic Artists Awards announced in New York in October 2011, Tim Griffith was was awarded First and Second Place in the Architectural Category.

www.maleonn.com

Little Flagman

MALEONN Little Flagman appeared at BIFB’11 with assistance from EPSON Australia

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The physical outward world is more and more complicated and chaotic.

In such a ridiculous age shaped by plastic values, lots of things that are profound and noble are becoming doubtful.

I’m trying to use my own way to reorganize this age in my eyes.

I’m dancing with the music of the times exaggeratedly and ludicrously, even a little artificial.

But, that is our irresistible fate.

All that is just the plastic feeling surface. During the process of building up the work, what supports me is still the self-thinking and inspections towards the human being as an individual.

My work is my inner world.

The moments in my works really have been existed in my fantasy.

Sometimes I painted them one day before shooting. I painted so quickly even surprised myself sometimes. They are so clear in my mind that every detail exists there.

I’d love to imagine and thinking all the day. I believe that I have a complete world inside my heart.

With my 30 years growing, this world is being constructed more and more complicated. What I’m doing is to turn the images of this world into reality, that’s all.

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Initially trained as a painter and having made his mark in China’s commercial film industry as a cutting-edge director, Maleonn has turned to photography in recent years. His work incorporates both painterly composition and filmic manipulation, rendering magical - if not dramatic - images of otherwise private moments in daily life. Widely established in China, Maleonn is a rising star in other major Asian cities, North America, and Europe.

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www.gerhardjoren.com

First Deadly Sin

Gerhard Jörén

It took me five years to shoot this document of the sex industry, and it consumed me several years more. ........................................................................................................

I almost gave up before I made my first image. I had spent most of my money in the course of three weeks in Manila, since my contacts could not deliver what they had promised. My Nikon FM2 was loaded with black and white film, but there was nothing to photograph. My deadline was approaching and I had less than a week to find a brothel that would allow me to take photographs.

One phone call made all the difference. It came from Estonia.

A businessperson in Tallinn wanted some investor contacts.

Before he hung up, he asked what was I doing. When I explained, he said he would call back in one hour. The outcome of that call was a number that took me on a journey in a police jeep to a villa in Makati, in Manila’s business district.

We all think about sex. In a lifetime of working as a professional photographer I have met very few successful people, in any field, who lacks a strong sex drive, even if many of them hide it well. The sex industry, famously history’s oldest profession, measured in turnover and employees, is probably the world’s biggest business. Yet it has generally been poorly reported.

The images it generates are distorted by a variety of agendas.

At one extreme – in pornography – dehumanised and codified to the point of boredom and sterility.

At another extreme – in NGO literature – misery magnified to serve fund-raising purposes. I didnt want to take a stand point.

I wanted to photograph life as I saw it.

I did very little research before I started this project in 1996, and all I knew was that I was going to have to give it time. I was careful to analyse any situation I found myself in, find an ally – someone who knew the place, a medium with access who was trusted. It didn’t matter whom, so long as they could help me build trust.

Trust is key when you are trying to document a time and place. It is everything. I would always try to make repeat visits. The best image come when people you are documenting relax and forget about the camera. Most the time I took pictures and developed them overnight, returning the next day and giving them to the girls or their clients, or whoever the subject was. This way people could see what I was doing, how I was approaching the work, and they appreciated it.

It became easier as my body of work grew. I would take a stack of 5� x 7� photographs down to a brothel or a club, and let the people there go through them. It amazed me effective this was at getting people on side.

I did not want to further exploit anyone. I was always scrupulous about getting permission from my subject, even if it had already been granted by the mamasan or brothel owner. If a woman or client asked me to crop them out of an image, or requested that it not be published at all, I always agreed. Case people wanted their story told. Everyone has a story, and the urge to tell it is something few of us can resist.

For five years after the phone call from Estonia, I roamed the world, mixing travel stories and corporate work, while waiting for access to brothels, porn productions and sex clubs. To protect my family and myself, I changed my name, and for a few years, it said Johansson in my passport. It was impossible to work full-time, since I had no sponsors. But, if I sensed something new around the corner, I took the turning. Of course, some of the best images never made it onto film because I did not have permission. But I knew from the beginning that this was the price I would have to pay for treating my subjects with respect.

The project took me across Europe, Japan, Philippines, Thailand, USA, Brazil, and even the Amazon, where I got no images. I travelled around northern Europe with a pagan commune that practice full-time what ts members worshipped most. I spent a month in Rotterdam with Sandra, a wonderful woman who was hooked on heroin and struggled to make it to the end of each day.

In a brothel in Nevada, I met Kara, who called herself Nicole and had a dream of becoming an art student.

The last images I made were in Pattaya, Thailand, where I followed some young European sex tourists a few days before the new millennium. I tried to go on after this, and spent five months in Bulgaria attempting to document the trafficking of women between Eastern and Western Europe. I met some criminals who agreed to try and arrange for me to be smuggled together with a group of Ukrainian prostitutes. It was an arrangement that never came to fruition, and after five months and no images I sensed that my journey had come to an end.

The images I offer you here are a document of that journey.

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Gerhard Joren Photographer/ Documentary film-maker, based in Bangkok, Thailand. Born in Sweden 1957. Moved to New York in 1982.

Shifted to Hong Kong in 1987. Travels the region and enjoys being part of the ever changing world.

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Cyclographs

Slavo Decyk

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Cyclography is a trace of the apparent movement of the Sun registered thanks to a disc (with pinhole) cyclically turning in circles. .......................................................................................

The purpose built registering machine is a ‘fusion’ of optical darkroom principles and a clock mechanism. The device interior sealing the boot (sic) of light is supplied with black and white photographic paper. Other prepared elements are also mounted in the sunlit place.

The negative image directly obtained is the result of a few days exposure. The movement of the disc is controlled by the clock, and revolves in accordance with the movement of one hand of the clock during exposure.

The movement of the pinhole ‘following’ the Sun revolves in the opposite direction to the Earth’s rotation.

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Born on June 25th, 1968 in Poland. Since mid of 90. involved in creative photography. Master of Art diploma in Photography at Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan.

Actually works in Department of Photography as an assistant professor (Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan). Author of photographic exhibitions and publications. contact: Dept. of Photography Academy of Fine Arts, Poznan Al. Marcinkowskiego 29 60-967 Poznan PL

Don’t bother to pack

Images courtesy Catherine Edelman Gallery

8 rooms, 7 mirrors, 6 clocks, 2 minds & 199 panes of glass

Lauren Simonutti www.edelmangallery.com

Lauren Simonutti appeared at BIFB’09 with assistance from the Consulate of the United States of America

Madness strips things down to their core. It takes everything and in exchange offers only more madness, and the occasional ability to see things that are not there.

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03.28.06 There were so many beginnings I had to choose one, and since this is a story of anniversaries 03.28.06 seemed the most appropriate. That is the day I began to hear voices.

Three of them, quite distinct.

Two are taunting and the third voice is mine, as I have heard it externally, on a tape recording or answering machine. That voice has some reserve, it seldom makes itself heard. The others are a constant. They all live in my right ear which rather makes sense as I spontaneously went deaf in that ear a decade ago and it has been vacant ever since. As time and treatment progressed they have stopped screaming and contribute only a dull murmur. Except at bedtime, at bedtime they like to sing. It presents itself as a sing-song - Rapid cycling, mixed state bipolar with schizoaffective disorder.

The problem with madness is that you can feel it coming but when you tell people you think you are going crazy they do not believe you. It is too distant a concept.

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Too melodramatic. You don’t believe it yourself until you have fallen so quickly and so far that your fingernails are the only thing holding you up, balanced with your feet dangling on either side of a narrow fence with your heart and mind directly over center, so that when you do fall it will split you in two. And split equally. So there’s not even a stronger side left to win.

I began to break time down.

Smaller and smaller parcels are easier to digest, easier to recognize, easier to bear.

This would be the math: 4 birthdays 3 + 1/2 years 42 months 1307 days (taking into account the leap year) 1,882,080 minutes 112,924,800 seconds

I would anatomize it further but it might make me appear obsessive.

The misfirings of my beloved/ despised mind that conspire to convince me to destroy all have rendered me housebound and led to a solitary life. A creature of past, proof, memory and imaginary friends, I am aware enough to know the things I see and hear are not real, but that does not mean I do not still see and hear them.

Over three and one half years I have spent alone amidst these 8 rooms, 7 mirrors, 6 clocks, 2 minds and 199 panes of glass. And this is what I saw here. This is what I learned.

Mad Eyes

reach

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Cross your heart

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The camera lied

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Can never go home anymore

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Evidence telephone

Hospitality

Discipline

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The Capriccios - the captive of all her vices

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Why is it I can’t recognize anyone anymore?

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Sorrow & the end of Sorrow - 2 faces of a singular truth

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Sorrow & the end of Sorrow - the careless muse forgets to put her toys away

The Capriccios - cradle a puss for a babe

The Devil’s Alphabet - A

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The Devil’s Alphabet - W (is it’s own altar)

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Tomorrow is my birthday and all my friends are here

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Still

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Cure for what ails you at twelve o’clock

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Evidence - in the corner

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Lauren Simonutti (Baltimore, MD) graduated from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, in 1990 with a BFA in Photography and a crippling addiction to alcohol.

She then moved to NYC where her degree enabled her to attain numerous positions in the food service, cocktail waitressing, and bartending industries. The mid to late 90’s introduced her intimately to the world of medicine including intensive care, orthopedics, physical therapy, wheelchairs (primarily single arm propelled), adjustable dial leg braces, bone growth stimulation (a phrase she finds amusing), titanium steel insertion rods and repeated reconstructive surgery, as the result of her introduction through and rapid expulsion from the windshield of the car that ran her over as she was walking home.

Throughout, it all – events, injuries, individuals, dreams, nightmares, life, still life, and visions of afterlife – has been faithfully recorded, processed, printed and when necessary toned, painted or otherwise altered and exhibited throughout the East Coast. The most concise series of which has been placed in book form and was recognized as a finalist for the Honickman First Book Prize in 2003, though still in need of a publisher. Entering the 21st century she finds herself relatively intact and ineptly sober, having purchased and trying to hold onto a delicate wreck of a house, which has become her primary model and largest work in progress thus far.

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Lauren E Simonutti [aka Lauren Rabbit] passed away in April 2012.

Rabbit had a special affinity with Australia, and was planning her third visit ‘down under’ this year. We are all deeply saddened by the loss of a true and unique artist, and feel privileged to have known her, if only briefly.

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Gossamer

Colin Page www.colinpage.com.au

Gossamer appeared at BIFB’11 with support from Newitt & York and Specular

Atlas

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In this series Colin Page is searching for his version of the origins of spirituality. Exploring the human form in search of imagery that inspires people to see mythical figures..

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They are glimpsed on the edge of the nocturnal realm, calmly watching.

Their features are both delicate and monstrous, gossamer and ghostly – a conflict between fierce power and tranquility. ..............................................................................

Anake

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Triton

Proteus

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Amalthea

Calypso

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Leda

Pan

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Callisto

Phobos

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Colin Page was born on the tiny island of Samarai in Papua New Guinea. He spent his early childhood living on Kiriwina Island and describes memories of this time as an inseparable blend of treasured moments and the Kodachrome view of the islands seen in his families’ slide shows.

His first camera was a Diana which he used for years, blissfully unaware that there was no film recording his compositions. He put film in the camera while studying at RMIT, where he graduated with a BA in Photography in 1990.

Colin travelled Australia as a portrait photographer then moved back to Melbourne in 1994 to pursue commercial, advertising and personal work.

Colin’s art work is made outside the visible spectrum using Infra Red and Ultra Violet light, invisible to the human eye but revealed in his images.

Prometheus

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Rivers Of Light

Michael Norton www.michaelnorton.com.au

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In ‘Rivers of Light’ Michael Norton explores the mystery and beauty of water, through a unique series of abstract photographs.

In this work the photographer uses water almost as a secondary lens, through which ephemeral images of the natural world are recorded. The water’s surface acts like a mirror, reflecting back light and colour, and momentarily recording events above the surface. Detail, depth and time merge together with unexpected results. In many ways these images are akin to our fading memories and transient experiences of nature.

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Michael Norton is a fine art photographer based in Melbourne, Australia.

Central to Michael’s work is the exploration of how we, as human beings, relate to the natural world, and the meaning we give it. In particular he is interested in the role photography plays in heightening our connection to nature, and conversely, how the art form serves as a mirror for our disconnection from the natural world. His work has been described as ethereal, painterly and exacting.

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unlocking the secrets of flight

Kara Rasmanis www.kararasmanis.com

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Unlocking the secrets of flight is a series of photogravure prints visually exploring the idea of simple fallen beauty.

The wing collection started with a single moth wing, then the collection grew to include bees, butterflies and cicada. Even though the wings can no longer move their owners through the air I hope to make the viewer soar with the simple beauty of the fallen object.

The photogravure prints are the combination of traditional photographic and printmaking process and contemporary digital media that give a feel, which would be unachievable using photography alone.

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I was born and raised in Ballarat a19th century gold rush town. An early love for all things creative guided me through childhood where I explored the creative arts and discovered photography.

Receiving a Bachelor of illustrative photography in 2000 and then continuing my education as the world of photography changed from analogue to digital in 2003 received a Masters of multimedia design. Coming full circle to discover photogravure several years after to finally be able to make the images I always dreamed.

My work moves from camera to computer then to etching plate where I produce images that combine all my creative loves.

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Karena Goldfinch www.karenagoldfinch.com

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The evidence of human impact on the landscape and how we interact with that environment is what inspires me to take photographs.

A recent move to an area that was affected by the fires of 2009 drew my awareness to the duality inherent in my relationship to the natural world.

Amongst the damaged landscape there is a beauty that constantly inspires and at the same time holds me in awe.

I work across several alternative photographic processes, Gumoil, Gum bichromate and Photogravure.

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The Shape of Music

neil cash www.neilcash.com

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The Shape of Music is an exploration of the visual aesthetics and personal nostalgia of music.

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Photography, geometry, music and time are all given equal importance and the use of shape, text and symbols emphasize the individual rhythm of each artwork. Each piece has its own unique story of how it came to be in my world, but I’m more intrigued by the reaction of the viewer, than the perspective of the creator. Music is universal and everybody has their own relationship with it and this is about melting together the wealth of music’s diverse history into one complete and distorted collection.

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Neil has been taking pictures since the age of 4, under the watchful eye of many mentors, not least of all his father, probably his greatest critic. Since his relocation from Manchester to Melbourne 3 years ago, he has won an array of awards in both portrait and fine art photography, culminating most recently, with the accolades of Fine Art Photographer and overall Photographer of the Year from the (AIPP) in Victoria. His passion for creativity is matched only by his lifelong love of music and this is most evident in his latest project ‘The Shape Of Music’.

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