Once upon a time, in a lifetime far, far away, I did a lot of landscape photography in a very generic, naturalistic sense. Inexperienced as I was, I just wanted to take “pretty” pictures. The bane of my existence was power lines. Ubiquitous in the Australian landscape, even in surprisingly remote corners of the country, these symbols of man’s conquest of nature inveigled their way into a depressing number of images.
Rather than attempt to compose in order to exclude them, or to resort to the  crude editing techniques of cropping and healing I began to make power lines a subject. Juxtaposing, isolating, integrating and minimalising them so they, and their presence, made a statement on relations, aesthetics and visual impact.
As scarring as they can be, they make a powerful statement about how man regards the natural environment. They demand an ambivalent response. On the one hand they dominate the landscape, and on the other hand they bring us the electricity that runs the gamut from enriching our lives to enslaving us to one mode of living Barrier and conduit, they would seem to be a necessary evil that also gives many the capacity to do good through the power it brings to our tools and devices. And sometimes they can be aesthetic in their own right.

[fgallery id=36 w=1000 h=640 t=0 title="Power Exhibition"]