Growing up, I always thought of wattle as the puffy yellow flowers that heralded Spring. But it seems to me that the trees are in full bloom throughout winter. I worked on this project in early July last year. The bush is teeming with colour and flowers all year round.
I’ve tried to evoke something of the happy, playful feeling of the Australian bush in these photographs. They are an impression of the experience rather than a literal or visual representation. When constantly exposed to something, we can become numb to it and fail to appreciate its wonder and beauty. By spending time closely looking, feeling, listening and just ‘being’ in the world of wattle plants, I formed a deep connection. I never hurry; it’s vital to be quiet and still, feeling the breeze on my face and listening to nature with my full attention. The world of the wattle tree is not our world. They invite us to enter their space, but they never really embrace our human existence with its concerns and busyness.

It takes me quite a while to search out the mystery with something as busy as a wattle tree. The movement of the flowers, leaves and branches, gently dancing in the breeze, was like a sweet melody that spoke to my soul. There is no direct translation. I can only attempt to interpret their story and express its essence in my art.

With their imperfections, vintage lenses create images with a character that I cannot get with modern, digital lenses. There are so many things that can go ‘wrong’ with the resulting photographs, such as softness, blur, flare, muted colour, unusual backgrounds and more. In my mind, these all seem like excellent reasons to use them. I enjoy the unpredictability of using old lenses which were not designed for digital cameras. It’s also lovely to feel the history of the gear, knowing that someone, many years ago, created images with it.

For the first day of taking wattle photos, I put my Lensbaby Composer on my camera; it is an old, small lens that can distort the image. I removed all of the aperture rings, so it was almost impossible to focus. Then came that wonderful feeling of drifting into another world. Everything else faded from my consciousness.

Another day, I used a vintage Russian lens; the Helios 44-2. This lens has a very useful design fault which is further enhanced when you reverse the front element. It creates a swirly effect around the edges of the image. Once the lens is inverted, very little remains in focus.

New dream worlds came into view by stepping right into the tree and putting the lens against the flowers. The wild, swirly effect is almost like a portal, allowing me a path into the magical land of wattle. Once I’m there, I feel free to experiment and create new visual spaces.

Wattle Story is a panorama of 9 slivers of image. It takes you on a journey into the wattle world of leaves, blossoms, light, shadow and breeze.

I started with 9 vertical photographs and arranged them into a panoramic grid, then tweaked the shadows and highlights of each individual photograph so they would work better as a single, unified image. I rearranged them in narrow strips, so they flowed to form a visual story. The finished piece prints at a very large scale.

To create Playful Wattle, I combined two frames in Photoshop; both were taken with the Helios lens. I really love the feel of the swirly leaves, and I wanted to include just a hint of the flowers.

Playfulness and harmony are two character traits of the wattle trees that I tried to bring back with me from their world. To do that, I kept the images fresh and natural. That required me to eliminate background elements in the photographs that were outside of the wattle world. The colour palette is simple and limited.

I’m grateful to the bush for her generous heart and welcoming spirit. She always reveals mysteries and treasures when we enquire.

Wattle Story

Seeing Beauty Everywhere