My Father's World
an Exhibition of
Fine Art Photography
by Roger Pengelly
Exhibition open 21 May - 14 June
My photographs are images and stories of beautiful and interesting locations from around the world. Each photograph is designed to share with others some of the feelings and beauty of Water, Land and Sky. For it is these elements that form our world and the space in which we live.
The interaction of the elements of Water, Land and Sky form the structure and feel of the landscape and country. I have been privileged to experience the natural environment in all types of weather and climatic conditions, for I have found that from variety and contrast, inspiration is is often born to be absorbed in nature and to provide absorbed in nature and to provide for others a window into these environments is a big component of what inspires me to capture the moment and the feelings that creates these windows on the world for a landscape is not only seen, but felt as well.
My photographs are designed to bring the outside places into indoor spaces. By looking into my photos and studying their detail, the viewer is able to experience some of the wonders and adventure of our created world. If others, by viewing my pictures, are in some way encouraged to look for beauty and adventure wherever they go, then I believe these images have achieved their goal and enriched the viewer.
Opening and artist talk Sunday, 24th May, 11:00 AM
Gloucester Gallery
25 Denison St, Gloucester 2422
My Journey
While in middle primary school, while cleaning out the tool-shed as a punishment for some long forgotten misdemeanour I discovered a beautiful framed print by Albert Namatjira. After dusting off the grime accumulated on it by it having lived among the garden tools, I just couldn’t stop studying it. I had not experienced any art training, but it wasn’t just a picture, it compelled me to study it and just feel the structure and space of the MacDonnell Ranges. So taking this framed picture, (it was about 16” x 20”), up to the headmaster, I told him this picture was too good to be in the tool-shed and it really needed to be displayed properly. Any way to his credit, he did clean it up and it was hung in a prominent place in the library. This experience provided for me an understanding that a landscape to be good, has to be felt by the viewer and it has to show the structure and feel of the land.
Photography for me has even from the age of a teenager has been a window to view the world and a mirror to share the world. Regularly the only bathroom in the house became my darkroom throughout the night, until the sun began to rise and the darkroom lost its darkness to the approaching dawn and my long suffering parents and brother were able to use the bathroom for its intended purpose.
Initially starting out with black and white film processing and printing , then progressing to colour negative, (C41) and colour slide processing, (E-6) as well as colour printing, mainly EP2. The maximum print size I could process in this set up was 8inches x 10inches.
After completing school, I studied photography at RMIT. It was here that I learnt the fundamental principle that black, white and grey are all the same thing really, it just depends on where the exposure you have chosen places these tones on the sensitivity curve of the film. And since most silver halide films have about a 5 stop range between black and white with grey being in the middle, a black that is overexposed by 4 or 5 stops will be become a very pale grey or white. This concept is the key to achieving correct exposure for the principle subject of the photograph.
After RMIT, I moved back up to NSW and became a colour printer in a large Photographic lab called Bondcolour who did a lot of large prints for advertising billboards and the like. It was while at Bondcolour and working with some very talented printing specialists, I began to see that sometimes, Biggest is really Best.
After Bondcolour I spent a few years working at Kodak on the technical consultancy team. A lot of our task being to diagnose and try and fix chemical and processing issues in commercial photographic labs.
In my later twenties, there was some significant changes in my thinking about the universe, humanity and my role in all of these interactive components. I still took photos of all sorts of things, some commercial, and some recreational, but while the clients were happy with the work, I would tend to say much of it was photographic snaps.
I began to see it more and more my responsibility to contribute to making my personal sphere of influence to be toward enriching the lives of those people within my influence. So toward that end, I studied teaching at what is now Sydney University in the faculty of Technology and Applied Studies. This was, I considered to be my way of encouraging high school students to develop creative thought processes and problem solving skills to be able to by using tools and materials bring these ideas to fruition and take tangible form. For some 40 years this has been my principle occupation and it has been an interesting adventure.
During my time as a teacher, I have been responsible for setting up darkrooms, (both wet and digital) in a number of schools. With some students taking out prizes in a number of competitions.
As my son grew older, he was a keen geocacher and we would go to a lot of very remote places. One of these being a cache chase of all the unloved caches in the general area of the Great Sandy Desert. There was some truly spectacular country that called out to be made into exhibition prints. It was at Hermannsburg, the home of Albert Namatjira and Palm Valley I was able to see some of the
places Albert saw, walked and painted, including his beautifully restored house that Albert built using rocks from the Finke River. To be in Albert’s country and to experience his places is something that always stays with you.
On another trip we explored much of the Heysen trail that Hans Heysen and his daughter Nora would regularly explore and paint. The impressive red gums and the Flinders Ranges that inspired the Heysen’s have been an inspiration for so many painters and artists. There is the same sort of soul in the Flinders as what Albert Namatjira found in the MacDonnell Ranges. In the works of Heysen as well as Namatjira, the structure of the landscape is clear and on display. It was this
feature that caused the art critic to dismiss Hans Heysen as being a mere draughtsman rather than a serious painter. I believe Hughes in that statement really missed so much of what is landscape art. My photos and landscapes grew so much from the inspiration of these places and the portfolio of my work grew.
A trip to Iceland in 2016, fulfilled a dream held since the age of 10. Iceland is such an environmentally and culturally diverse and absorbing place. It was Iceland that very much taught me to feel the landscape rather than look at it. While in Iceland, I learnt of the role William Morris of the Arts and Crafts Movement in England had in organising the Icelandic sagas. He learnt Icelandic and played a part in the early days of the independence for Iceland movement. A big driver for William Morris was his attempt to reform society and elevate society through beauty and design. A quote of his being, “each home should have two things, something very useful and something very beautiful.”
After the trip to Iceland, I began to get serious about digital photography and digital printing. A high quality digital camera is able to record a tonal range of at least 12 stops compared to film 5 stops and there are no cross curves in digital. I was truly convinced that digital was the way to go and got my own 10 colour printer and started printing my own work for exhibition. I held a couple of
exhibitions at the Central Coast and my work began to sell to private individuals as well as some corporates. Many clients have remarked on the beauty and strength of subject structure they experience in the pictures they display in their chosen space. To me, that is sort of the influence of Albert Namatjira, Hans Heysen and William Morris coming through.
My wife and I experienced a couple of years living and working on Palm Island in Northern Queensland. As well as living and mixing in the community, we were able to explore a fair bit of the Island. The contrast of the wet and dry times and the blend of jungle and ocean provided much wonder and beauty of place and is the material for another exhibition in the future.
My wife and I have recently moved to the Area and have been welcomed by so many in the creative community of Gloucester, Barrington and the surrounding area. I believe a community with a large number of creatives is in a good place.
Charlie has been particularly encouraging in getting this exhibition of My Father’s World happening.
While studying and learning of the works and philosophy of Ansel Adams, a quote from him stands out. “Sometimes I do get to places just when God’s ready to have somebody click the shutter.” On so many occasions, this has been my experience. So many times, it has been my experience to come to a place and you feel the place and feel the photo, imagine the print and paint it all in an instant on the light sensitive part of the camera. But it might have taken you hours or days to get there, but when you do, its like God has laid it all out, just ready for the photographer.
Shortly after moving into our house, the 44inch 12 colour printer arrived, having passed on the older 24 inch one to a good home. The quality of print and the trueness of colour and tone from the high end Epson printer with its archival inks are really very impressive.
So as a new member of the creative community and as an artist, I believe we have the responsibility to if we can, enhance the creative endeavours of those we can.
When dealing with the topic of landscape photography, it is impossible not to mention the work of Ansel Adams. In the early 1930s Ansel Adams was poised on choosing the career of a musician or photographer. Who knows how the world might have been different if he chose music, but we have him to thank largely for America’s national parks and the world has him to thanks for directing our attention to the spectacular skies and structured feel of his mountainou landscapes that so define his style.
A few quotes from Ansel Adams
“No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive, create or produce, but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves, their perceptions and emotions, and to build confidence in the creative spirit.”
“Sometimes I do get to places just when God’s ready to have somebody click the shutter.”
“It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.”
“I never know in advance what I will photograph, … I go out into the world and hope I will come across something that imperatively interests me. I am addicted to the found object. I have no doubt that I will continue to make photographs till my last breath.”
“No matter how sophisticated you may be, a large granite mountain cannot be denied – itspeaks in silence to the very core of your being”
“You don’t make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.”
“There are no forms in nature. Nature is a vast, chaotic collection of shapes. You as an artist create configurations out of chaos. You make a formal statement where there was none to begin with. All art is a combination of an external event and an internal event… I make a photograph to give you the equivalent of what I felt. Equivalent is still the best word.”
“Both the grand and the intimate aspects of nature can be revealed in the expressive photograph. Both can stir enduring affirmations and discoveries, and can surely help the spectator in his search for identification with the vast world of natural beauty and wonder surrounding him.”
“Wilderness or wildness is a mystique. A religion, an intense philosophy, a dream of ideal society – these are also mystique. We are not engaged in preserving so many acre-feet of water, so many board-feet of timber, so many billion tons of granite, so many profit possibilities in so many ways for those concerned with the material aspects of the world. Yet, we must accept the fact that human life (at least in the metabolic sense) depends upon the resources of the Earth. As the
fisherman depends upon the rivers, lakes, and seas, and the farmer upon the land for his existence, so does mankind, in general, depend upon the beauty of the world about him for his spiritual and emotional existence.”
Influences for my work
While the works and philosophies of Albert Namatjira, Hans Heysen, William Morris, Frederick McCubbin and Ansel Adams have certainly influenced my work, these are but a component. Because “You don’t make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.” Ansel Adams.
And the most important I believe is the landscape and how it speaks to you and how God set it all up waiting for the photographer to come along.
Techniques and Equipment
One can get into some interesting and potentially non productive arguments about the best equipment and brands. The best thing I believe is to know the equipment you have, know its limitations and expose the image correctly and focus it sharp. A poorly focussed image or poorly exposed image will always be just that. Messing around in the darkroom or with a digital editing software can only make a good image, great. It will never make a poor image great, perhaps it
might become OK if you are lucky.
I have produced some quite large images on 7megapixel cameras to 50 megapixel camera. I have used RAW files, TIF and JPG. Its just a lot easier with the larger sensor size and a RAW image though.
Other than Neutral Density filters, I never use filters on camera, its just another optical layer that has to be managed and carried.
Much of my work is made up of composite images joined together, often these are taken with a wide angle lens.
The 2 main lenses I use are 14-24mm and 200-500mm.
Only use a tripod when shooting long exposures for moving water such as waterfalls or waves on beach.
Setting the colour balance to the situation on the camera makes everything so much easier to print.
We can tolerate a background that is a little bit soft, but we can rarely tolerate a foreground that is out of focus. Use focus stacking to overcome this problem if necessary.
My photos are real, and other than a bit of extra sharpness sometimes and image stitching I don’t use any tricks that a good darkroom printer wouldn’t use.
When working around streams and water and rivers, I always put the equipment in a Pelican case, before I move and don’t take it out until I am actually setting up for the photograph. Then close the lid of the case with both catches and put it in some place where it won’t float away.
(There are probably lenses in it and the camera needs a dry case to get back into when moving to the next place). Never drowned a camera yet, but have fried the electronics in a lens on an electric fence.
If a person was with me when the photo was taken, they would see the same thing and hopefully feel it as well.
Preferred lighting is generally ¾ rear or backlit. Anyone can take a nice picture with good full frontal light, but the exciting ones are when the light is difficult and you have to work with it.
And finally, the more you get out, the more you get to see and discover.