Most of the photographers, including myself, started with landscape photography.
We have all our favourite landscape photographers, the ones we took our inspiration from. A myth of mine is Richard Green and, even if on a trip with limited internet access, was able to organise an interview for MEL365.
Richard Australian photos are unique to say the least. One of the reasons is the location, which is not accessible even by four-wheel drive vehicles and many have never previously been photographed. How does he go there? By helicopter. The format of the prints is just amazing, up to 4 meters wide and, best of all, with all the details you expect from a great photographer. His compositions are awesome and spectacular. Go and check his website to live the unknown corners of Australia.
His book, Remote & Wild, is magnificent. All of the photos have a map of where it was made, and you soon get the sense of how big and diverse is Australia. I particularly like the last chapter where he explains the technical challenges he has experienced since he started his project many years ago. I totally agree also with his view of the digital post-production. Photoshop, and similar software, help us to obtain that results we used to have in the past selecting different films and lenses and spending long hours in the dark room. Just think the difference results you can have using films from two different makers. Post-production help us to recreate the moment the experienced, our magic time.
Q. How did you start photography?
Given a box camera for 13th birthday
Q. What was your initial inspiration?
Peter Drombovskis
Q. What makes the good pictures stand out from the average?
Composition, content interest, and technical quality
Q. Do you think that the social environments, facebook and the like, help to spread a message, a photo, a project?
Yes, but I don’t use them
Q. What would you like to say to a person who wants to take up photography?
Good luck
Q. You use a helicopter to access otherwise unreachable places to make incredible photos. How complicated is to organise a photographic expedition in your case?
Very
Q. Your landscape photos are printed on large size (up to 4 metres) however the level of details is still amazing. How difficult is to reach this result?
Not too difficult after a lot of practice. The basic process is described in the book.
Q. What equipment do you usually use for these big format landscape photos? You have been making photos for 20 years, I guess a huge change from the past.
First large images were with a 5×4 plate camera. I then started to digitise and hand stitch these. Now it is all digital even with Photoshop doing much of the stitching
Q. Among your works, which one is your favourite?
Probably the helicopter on location at Tentpole – because it summarised what we do
Q. Let’s talk about your next project.
Getting some shows up overseas
Richard is currently exhibiting in Newcastle (check here for more details) and he will open a new exhibition in Wangaratta on the 21st of December (more info here). I was in Newcastle few weeks ago and I was blown away. Really interesting also this video, included in the exhibition.
http://www.richardgreen.net.au
Check other photographers in the interview series
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