A picture of a...

A picture of a [x] is not a [x]... it's a picture of a [x] - Author?

I'm not sure who wrote that anymore... [x] is a cat, box or something like that.

I'm currently going through the process of getting permission to enter another holy grail for the purpose of making a series of images. As with most venues, I'm mostly guessing as to what it might be like inside as I can't get anywhere near a window for a peek. This makes the experience aspect of the process very intense and thankfully so. If I knew what I was to encounter then it would be a purely technical exercise of getting it on film.

However, of late I've had to turn to digital collections and other image mines to try to get a rough sketch of various places for efficiency sake. As much as I'd like, I don't have hours to simply absorb the surrounds prior to getting to work.

This particular venue is very much under-documented - if at all. Access was severed in the mid to late 1990s so whilst there might be scores of negatives in someone's cupboard, there is close to nothing online.

Today I went to the State Library to review various items that they had there with the hope of seeing some interiors. I did find these but I also had a rather intense experience encountering the normally hidden stories that came out of both the images and text.

I normally appreciate the ambuigity of space as it allows both the viewer and I to surrender to the images, but today I discovered that the real connections were poetic, tragic, beautiful and colourful.

There was a stunning series of b/w portraits from 1974 that still make my hair stand on end even just thinking about them now. Also included were amazing 'daily life' shots, including three colour images of various meals. I really found the whole experience very inspiring and will likely look at it creatively as well.

Very much for another visit is a collection of interviews - on cassette - that were conducted as research for a book.