Favourite Cactus

© Andrée Lawrey

Pure self-indulgence. I love that gentle green, the soft-looking texture of the leaves, those interlocking curves...

Alternatives at Abell's Kopi Tiam

Camogli at Dusk © Andrée Lawrey

Afternoon Silhouettes, Portofino  © Andrée Lawrey

Alternatives is an exhibition by three photographer friends – Lorna Sim, Susan Henderson and Andrée Lawrey – who enjoy experimenting with alternative capture and printing processes in our work.  We happily mix and match advanced digital cameras, medium format film, basic plastic cameras, traditional chemical printing processes, digital stitches and montages, retro phone camera apps and anything else we think of in our quest for evocative images.  While these processes are never an end in themselves, but only tools we use to craft our images, we have a lot of creative fun along the way.

This exhibition has been in the back of our minds at least since we were making cyanotypes together in 2010.  At that stage we were thinking purely in terms of alternative printing processes (cyanotype, Vandyke brown) but over time the concept evolved to reflect new directions in our work.  When we finally started selecting work for the exhibition, we found ourselves stretching the boundaries to include plastic cameras and modern, digital "alternatives" as well as cyanotypes and other traditional processes.

Susan is showing cyanotype and Vandyke prints – subtle, organic, ethereal still life studies of shells, feathers and flowers – with two jewel-like landscapes captured on medium format film with a Holga plastic camera.  Lorna has combined her hi-fi dance photography with lo-fi dream-like landscapes to create images with a strong, almost surreal mythological feeling.  And I am showing a selection from my iPhone in Italy series, which began as a light-hearted attempt to express my delight in a wonderful trip and somehow found its way onto my "personal best" list.

Lorna, Susan and I are very happy to present a selection of our favourite "alternatives" at Abell's Kopi Tiam restaurant in Furneaux Street, Manuka (ph. 6239 4199).  

Catching Up

On the Way to Portofino © Andrée Lawrey

I love January. It is the quietest month as summer settles in after the silly season. Suddenly there is time to catch up with sleep, friends, family, the backlog of half-sorted photos, unfinished projects, the blog (ahem!), travel plans and everything else that gets pushed aside during the busy times.

I am still sifting through my photographs from Italy. This pair were taken from the bus on the way to Portofino, on the last afternoon of the Liguria Within The Frame workshop.  I love the challenge of photographing from a moving vehicle – it is a lot of fun as well as a wonderful exercise in timing and composition – and wrote about it in my November 2011 Different Strokes article, here (on page 23 of Capital Image).

My last article for the year was Holiday Tasks (here, on page 13), which takes a light-hearted look at ways to keep some photography happening during the festive season when we don't really have time and energy to spare.

Have Cameras, Will Travel – the Art of Being There

Beach Huts Near Portofino © Andrée Lawrey

I had a wonderful time in Italy last April – not least on the Liguria Within the Frame workshop with David Duchemin, Jeffrey Chapman and a small group of committed photographers. I am still absorbing what I learned along the way – more on that and the workshop in future posts and/or articles – but my latest Different Strokes article talks about the core lesson: preparation is important, but being there is essential. You can find it here, in the July 2011 edition of Capital Image (page 25).

An iPhone in Italy (II)

© Andrée Lawrey

More exhibition images from my iPhone in Italy series. The flowers and the church are from Portofino and the others are from a morning excursion to Burano in the Venetian lagoon.

This set is part of Out There 2011, the Canberra Photographic Society's annual exhibition which is now showing at the Watson Arts Centre. More information, including an online catalogue, is available here. The exhibition continues until 10 July.

An iPhone in Italy

Roman Flare and Afternoon Trees © Andrée Lawrey

Many of my favourite images from my visit to Italy last April were taken with my iPhone. The Hipstamatic app I was using just seemed to suit my subjects and the holiday mood I wanted to convey.  

I exhibited this pair in Access all Areas 2011 - The PhotoAccess Members' Show in May. I was trying for silhouettes but the iPhone sensor, the Hipstamatic app's Helga Viking lens and the angle of the sun conspired to deliver some additional special effects. The only post-processing I did was to crop off the white border around each photo, which doesn't look good in prints.

Wheels!

Cool Wheels © Andrée Lawrey – Hipstamatic 201

I'm still catching up with 'normal' life after a delightful few weeks in Italy – more on that when I have finished sorting and processing an embarrassing quantity of photos.  Meanwhile, a Southside Camera Club excursion to Robbo's Motorcycles, a local Harley-Davidson® dealership, provided a totally different subject to help me re-focus on the here and now.

Motorcycles bring out my close-up and abstract, arty side.  Machines as sculpture – all those curvy metal shapes and reflective surfaces.  They are challenging to photograph, especially in the bright,white light of the showroom, but well worth the trouble.  I spent a wonderful morning with these amazing machines – my thanks to Robbo's for giving us the opportunity and making us so welcome.

I love the way the Hipstamatic iPhone app brought out the cool, steely blue of the metal (which must have been reflecting my blue cardigan), while my SLR's sensor responded to the cool, white light with a golden glow I could not bear to 'correct' in post processing.

Warm Wheels © Andrée Lawrey – D700, 105 F/2.8 micro