I’ve just published a new project I’ve been working on last year portraying the harsh outback summer sun drenched Queensland landscape in drought. This series of six images represents my interpretation of “Outback Exposure”. This series can be viewed here on the website or on social media.
Australian Photography Awards Finalist 2021
Honoured and proud to again have images make the finalists list in the Australian Photography Awards (Landscape category). Refreshingly, this is one of the very few landscape photography competitions that recognises and rewards a meaningful and thought provoking narrative above pretty visual aesthetics. Proof that a landscape photograph can be anything and it doesn’t have to be popular, pretty or satisfy a mainstream audience. Congratulations to the winners and category finalists! 😀
Below are my two finalist images from the 2021 Australian Photography Awards. Clearly two very opposite artistic intents and mindsets and made at different stages of my photographic life. The top image was made using ICM or intentional camera movement during one exposure. The bottom is a documentary style image made during my "Back Roads of Americana" series highlighting the human impact on the American western desert landscape.
Decimation | Charred remnants of wildfire devastation | Glacier National Park, Montana.
A Salted Land | Salt mining in the Bristol Dry lake bed | Mojave Desert, California.
Petapixel
A big thanks to Petapixel and Medium Format Magazine for recently featuring my “Back Roads of Americana” Project.
“The Back Roads of Americana photo series is a modernist masterpiece” Click on link below to read 👇🏻
Elements Landscape Photography Magazine
See my “how it was shot” article in the August edition of ELEMENTS Landscape Photography Magazine.
"How it Was Shot"
"The ordinary world needed to be portrayed
with a substantial narrative as I wanted the
viewer to look deeper into the photograph.
That meant contradicting the traditional
"rules" and techniques, and not being
constrained creatively by photography's
current social media motivated,
creativity killing popularity trap"
See more in this months ELEMENTS Landscape Photography Magazine.
New Long Term Project!
Excited to be starting a new long term local photography project called ‘Australian Spaces’ which will be an observational, documentary style collection of images from remote Australia. More details to come…….
Are you actually a “Landscape" photographer ?
Are you a “landscape” photographer, or selfie taker? Inserting yourself in a pose into your own “landscape” photograph is a self absorbed trend (one of many) that has reared it’s ugly head in recent years since the narcissistic Instagram platform came along. It wasn’t a common trend before then!. I can only guess that this selfie trend is again motivated by “likes”, popularity and validation (Ho-hum, the usual suspects) or maybe the chance of nailing a lucrative multi-million dollar North Face Instagram contract is a motivation, I don’t know? But whatever the reasons for doing this, it is important to remember that the most respected landscape photographers of all time always put the landscape and the environment first in their photographs as the main subject and I can’t recall them including themselves in their own photographs. Because one thing is for certain, the landscape is far more relevant, more beautiful and popular than any single photographer will ever be. So with that in mind how about being a humble photographer by firstly paying respect to the landscape in your “landscape” photographs, instead of firstly paying tribute to yourselves with the misguided belief that it will somehow improve the photograph, because it rarely does. Of course some will argue that it adds a “sense of scale” and in some cases this is true, but in most cases, posing any human in a “landscape” composition is a distraction from the main subject matter (the landscape). This is not portrait photography! Come on, it’s about time we as photographers evolved beyond the cheesy cliche Instagram trends and looked to the future of photography with a little less narcissism and a lot more originality, creativity and respect for the subject matter and the genre. Ultimately it’s not for me to dictate what you do and how you do it and this is purely a personal observation, but surely it’s something worth considering in order to define your photography portfolio into something more substantial going forward? Whether you agree or disagree, it’s not always all about you right? Or is it? Food for thought….🤔.
Behind the scenes Instagram account
To anyone who’s interested I’ve recently started a “behind the scenes'“ Instagram account in addition to my main photography account. I prefer to concentrate most of my time only on photography when I’m working in the field however occasionally I do shoot a quick video or two on the iPhone. I’m not interested in polished video production or shameless self promotion though so don’t expect me to show up on YouTube any time soon doing video tutorials!
Instagram main - guy_havell
Instagram (behind the scenes) - guy_havell_bts
NEW SERIES - 'Nobody's Home'
This is a new series I started during the Covid pandemic while travelling within the restrictions of my home state of Queensland but it will eventually branch out into other Australian states as travel restrictions come to an end. Again, like much of my recent work, I was interested in photographing humble abandoned or disused structures in a simple way that highlights form and has an interaction with the locality. Almost a “Back Roads of Americana” mentality with an Australian subject matter. As with that series, this one adopts an anti-Instagram aesthetic and often employs a blatant disregard to the “rules” of photography. For me, good subject matter will always come before “good light”. I’m not interested in searching for beauty and again I’ve totally detached myself from trying to satisfy a mainstream audience and by continuing that contrarian approach I can continue to evolve as a photographer. Photography for me is not about gaining someone else approval, it’s purely self expression. I liked these humble landscapes so I photographed them in my own way, and if others take the time to look deeper into the photograph and interpret them in their own way, then that’s merely a bonus.
Medium Format Magazine Article
I’m delighted to have been asked to write an article for the prestigious Medium Format Magazine about my recently completed “Back Roads of Americana” Project. I talk about why I decided to do it, my thought process and my contrarian approach to photographing the landscape. Download the February 2021 edition on their website to find out more!
SOCIAL MEDIA - ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
After 12 or so years posting my work on the hideous, data stealing, agenda pushing, untrustworthy social media platform known as #Facebook, I have decided to deactivate my account with view to deletion soon. I have also deleted for good my #Twitter account as a personal cleansing of the worst of the worst of the “big tech” scum group of companies. They may have stolen my data, but they will never steal my soul! I’m an individual, not a fucking sheep! ENOUGH is ENOUGH!
My only social media postings will now be seen on Instagram (guy_havell) and here on my website.
Thanks for your understanding.
APA FINALIST 2020
After winning the Travel / Street category at last year’s Australian Photography Awards I’m happy to follow it up this year finishing as a top 20 finalist in the Landscape category. Do yourself a favour and check out a refreshingly diverse selection of 75 thought provoking and meaningful Landscape images from some of the best professional and amateur photographers in Australia.
It’s great to see a Landscape Photography Competition recognising and rewarding substantial narrative, originality and diversity of subject matter and style over the well worn, popular pretty visual aesthetics. Kudos to the Australian Photography Awards! Landscape photographers need to evolve beyond desperately trying to please a mass audience.
https://www.australianphotographyawards.com.au/galleries/2020-landscape/
Thought of the Week...
What ever happened to the characteristics of the wonderful moody landscape film photographs with dark shadows and uninhibited highlights? Characteristics that seem to have gotten lost in modern digital photography’s “dynamic range” obsession and camera company marketing spin where it’s all about detail in highlights and shadows, and nothing about the heart and soul, or mood of the final output.
I’m not getting into the “which is better” debate which has been done to death, but why does my eye continually get drawn straight to the film photographs I see, while largely ignoring the shadowless, highlightless, over processed, extremely detailed “epic” scenes of grandeur?
Modern digital landscape photography and it’s obsession with DR and over processing is boring and clinical!
In many ways, film is better....
Landscape Photography Awards. No Thanks!
As of this year 2020 I will be reducing the amount of photography competitions I enter but especially within the oversaturated “landscape photography” genre. Most landscape photography competitions don’t interest me anymore, bring nothing new to the table in terms of representing the diverse subject matter within the landscape, and, generally speaking, are just money making exercises most of which are judged largely preferencing pretty picture visual aesthetics over anything that is likely to convey a thought provoking or substantial narrative. The landscape photography genre in general really struggles with recognising diverse subject matter within our environment and the idea that “the best” landscape images must present as a “epic” scenes of grandeur photographed in “good light” with plenty of “wow” factor is just a narrow minded perspective and does nothing for the genre. Unfortunately, the “enter as many as you can” mentality associated with many of these landscape competitions just promotes mass produced generic mediocrity and cliche, and subsequently for the new entrant holds very little value educationally unless constructive critique is given, which it rarely is as there are simply too many entries. If anything it just encourages the new entrant to just replicate the winning formulaic styles or trophy shots in the future which might be good for shallow Instagram “likes,” but is hardly productive for creating a long term, credible image portfolio. Sadly, the term “award winning photographer” holds very little credence today in an era where landscape photography competitions are a dime a dozen, and so is the commonly seen, often cliche photographs that typically dominate these awards. The landscape photography genre is extremely popular but it needs to evolve away from simple popularity motivated pretty aesthetics and into something more meaningful, and so does the somewhat hollow criteria used for judging these landscape competitions. Photography for me never has, and never will be, about trying to please someone else’s subjective tastes or preferences, but sadly, success in landscape photography competitions these days will largely depend on who can “wow” the judges typically with a spectacularly “epic” pretty picture, while leaving perhaps the most important elements of a photograph behind. A thought provoking story, a message, or even something meaningful.