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June 20, 2007
[DAYLESFORD FOTO BIENNALE 2007]
IMAGING MOTORED INTO THE COUNTRY last week to take in the second Daylesford Foto Biennale. Not all of it, we admit, merely a fraction of what is on offer. And it occurs to us that this is possibly the most geographically dispersed photographic exhibition in the known universe.
We started at the East Trentham pub, the Pig and Whistle (in the Grand Ballroom, no less – the licensee either has a feel for irony or delusions of grandeur) and we finished at the Town Hall in Clunes. In between we visited galleries, both permanent and ad hoc, in Trentham and Daylesford. We had to give Hepburn Springs and Creswick a miss.
All together there are 56 sites with displays of photographs ranging in style from sharp documentary and portrait photos to experiments on the edge where photography meets painting.
There is a lot of obvious striving to escape the technical perfection and constraints of photo journalism and to use photographic materials in ways that are at once primitive and avant garde. Pinhole cameras are in vogue, producing surprisingly diverse results from the ethereal soft-focus monochrome to sharp colour.
In Clunes, Steph Tout is displaying her 360° pinhole panoramas which, we are assured, were taken with a home made camera cobbled together from a biscuit tin and sticky tape. The colour film is wound around a cylinder in the dark and then sealed into the “camera” which has six holes punched around the barrel. Ms Tout takes one exposure, moves to another point, takes another one, and so on. The film is developed and printed conventionally. Her panorama of the sunset at Lake Mungo is particularly striking.
In the Daylesford Town Hall are some of the entries in the Head On portrait competition. And in the Clunes Town Hall (worth a visit for its own sake) is a display of portraits of well known people ranging from Desmond Tutu to Angry Anderson with two Edna Everages in between.
Just before the Biennale started a group of photographers who still use large format 4x5 and 8x10 cameras brought their gear to Trentham, set up their cameras, stuck their heads under the black sheets and recorded a day in the life of the town. The photos were developed and contact printed on the spot and are now on display in the Grand Ballroom of the Pig and Whistle. The sheer richness of tone and detail in an 8 x 10 image is unsurpassed.
Bryan Dawe, one half of the Clarke and Dawe act on The 7.30 Report every Thursday, happens to be an accomplished photographer with a unique style. His subject is, ostensibly, the female form, but from the clichéd image he creates disturbing dreamscapes. They are indescribable, so you’d best look for yourself.
In the old Trentham railway station there is a display of work by American Karl Koenig, called “Studies in time”. Some of his pictures are printed using a gum oil process, akin to that used in the 19th century. Others are reproduced on a printing press using the photogravure etching method. The results are at once modern and antique and beautiful.
The Daylesford Biennale runs till 2 July and most exhibition spaces open at 10am. Entry to all but the commercial galleries, such as The Convent, is free. The program, includes seminars, lectures and workshops.
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Posted by terry at June 20, 2007 11:39 PM
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