Your 4WD offers you so many opportunities to see stunning locations around Australia.
When you arrive at these places, most people will have some form of camera with them.
I have always said, there’s a photographer in all of us! You don’t need the best camera or smartphone to create amazing imagery, you just need to start by taking photos with whatever camera you have at the time you are at these amazing places.
Australia has some beautiful historical sites built many years ago with basic tools and bare hands. These sites provide us stunning old buildings in the middle of nowhere, set in some of the most picturesque scenes.
We have environments which change with the weather conditions meaning that each time you visit the same location, it will look different from the last.
This is what makes every place you have been to worth visiting again.
Before you head to any destination, you will either research the spot to ensure that you see everything that you need to when you are there, or you might be a little more relaxed and simply just see it for yourself on arrival.
Either way, have you ever thought about the things that you have missed?
I can almost guarantee that you will not have seen everything after spending time at a historical site. We naturally will get lost in the awesome experience of seeing a historical building or ruins for the first time, so it makes sense that you would be looking at the building and everything around it, but what have you possibly missed?
Especially as a photographer, it’s not always about the big picture. You should be looking into the details. There is so much you can capture on camera or your iPhone at these amazing sites or even in the scrapyard on a station property. You just need to see things differently.
Next time you visit a site of importance, a beautiful landscape, or a station scrap yard, have a deeper look into the environment, the old building and the rubble itself as there are so many photographic opportunities just waiting for you to create art.
Most importantly, don’t forget to look down.
That cracked earth from the recent rain with the new growth sprouting through.
The rope lost and embedded in the earth for so many years.
The textures in the rusted items left and abandoned.
The stone wall which was painstakingly built many years ago and is still standing.
The old fishing net caught in the skeletal remains of a shipwreck.
The weathered and sun-bleached timbers.
That hook and chain still holding on.
Anything rusty can hold a story.
Something as simple as the barb from a string of barbed wire.
So next time you venture into a destination have a look around, don’t forget to look down, and make sure you search out the details, find and capture your next artwork for your wall.
Next time you travel, take home some of your own “Trashed Art”.
“Cheers”
-Michael Ellem
Offroad Images
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