If Ansel Adams surfed

When I was a lot younger and starting to learn the discipline of shooting, processing and printing film on big 5x4" cameras, most of my fellow students at Art College were inspired by documentary style street photographers.
But I was not.
By then I had seen enough of the street and was more interested in the brine and the bush.

Instead the two monochrome magicians that still inspire me years and a digital revolution later are the Czech Josef Sudek and the American landscape legend Ansel Adams.
Who knows why some aRt resonates with one viewer and not another. Maybe all that time swimming around with a Nikonos or waiting to catch a wave at Granite or Tea Tree nurtured a love of place and the way light skims off country at different times of the day and different seasons of the year.

“It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.”
Ansel Adams

“When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.”
Ansel Adams

“To the complaint, 'There are no people in these photographs,' I respond, There are always two people: the photographer and the viewer.” 
Ansel Adams

But if you are devotee of gritty monochrome street photography, then check out one of my old Art College teachers, Charles Page 's page. His imagery takes a lot more guts then duck diving a few close out sets with a DSLR.

Game Changer

The photo above was taken with a Nikonos 35mm film camera.

A lot of people get excited about film.

But not me.

It costs money and time waiting to see if you got the shot. And the camera above is manual focusing, manual film wind on.

Film does have it's time and places, depending on the light, the emulsion (affordable digital still can't replicate infra red mono film for my money) and the intended final use. 

I still use four film cameras including a 1936 6x6 and a 1980s Nikonos with two different lenses to shoot out in the water with. However, I mainly shoot water surf using a bulky DSLR in a robust professional housing.

But today, one can now buy a digital version of the legendary underwater Nikonos, complete with interchangeable lenses, small size, large resolution and 10+ frames per second. It's a game changer.

South of My Days Circle

Oh, they slide and they vanish 

as he shuffles the years like a pack of conjuror's cards. 

True or not, it's all the same; and the frost on the roof 

cracks like a whip, and the back-log break into ash. 

Wake, old man. this is winter, and the yarns are over. 

No-one is listening 

South of my days' circle. 

I know it dark against the stars, the high lean country 

full of old stories that still go walking in my sleep. 

from South of My Days Circle by Judith Wright