When walking these backroads it is hard to escape the socio-historical context, and hence there is the pull away from the modernist concern with form and the geometry of the image towards a critical engagement with the land seated in the particular cultural history of the region.
This is rural Australia with its damns and signs warning walkers away from the fields. The pathways between the fields are few and far between, whilst the bird life is minimal.There is little to no wildlife in the roadside vegetation.
I have been looking at Light Sensitive: Contemporary Australian Photography from the Loti Smorgon Fund, which showcases the collection of Australian photography acquired by the National Gallery of Victoria (2006). There is no landscape photography and only a couple of photos of rural Australia–portraits in a bush setting done in a documentary mode. Landscape is not a major trend, even though photography is the centre of innovative practice in the visual arts in Australia. The land, it seems, doesn’t matter.