John Austin Photography

NOT DEAD YET: New Film Photography. Exhibition of film based photography at Earlywork Gallery in South Fremantle.

John Austin / Dan Bruyn / Rob Frith / Melissa McDougall / Mark Roy / Jessica Schwientek / Cim Sears / John Toohey / Neil Wallace

3-7 April 2024,  Wednesday- Sunday 10am-4pm

Curated by John Toohey, gallery director Kate Lindsay

The show was proposed and organised by John Toohey.  I accepted John’s invitation to take part in it with a bit of internal reluctance.  Reluctance as transport, travel and accommodation are usually fraught and expensive.

I really enjoyed the opening, apart from the crowd and the noise.  There were lot of old friends there, all looking older and slower.

I was impressed with the range of subject matter and treatment, all film originals, but all vastly different.  (I will not enter into discussion of the exhibition content, as a co-exhibitor this would be unprofessional and I did not take enough time the following day to be in any way qualified to comment - But it is good and is the trigger for an annual event.)

My own work was a group of nine "Snapshots: Signs and Situations".  I had originally planned on a group of contact prints from the new 10x8" wide angle 'point and shoot' camera, but these pix were and are coming too slowly to use for this show.  In any case, the camera in its pinhole form is being used more by Rae than by me. Rae plans to include her images from this machine in next year's show.

My biggest surprise was the interest in this show of film based photography.   But the question which then comes to my mind is; does this mean film based photography is having a resurgence, or does it mean film and silver gelatine printing is now an oddity niche; like etching and lithography following the introduction of the rotary offset printing press?