Joadja, Thank You For The Inspiration!

by communicatingcreatively, posted in Photography, Stories From Life

Over the years, I have visited Joadja Creek, which is an old Shale mining town in the Southern Highlands of NSW Australia.

I had been down there 3 times before dating back to the 1980’s however I had not been20140926-img_5656-1 there for some 12 years when I ventured down there in 2014.

Although some restorative work is taking place with some of the roofs, Joadja is largely how I remembered it, a place of history, an ornament to the Scottish part of our heritage and a wonderful place to let the mind relax.

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In the past I had gone down there with just photography in mind however this time around was a bit different. This time I took my camera, my iPad and my pencils.

The camera to capture the place photographically, the iPad to capture it in words and pencils to do some sketching.

Included here are some of the images I took and I also have included a link to a previous post on this blog, where you will see a poem I wrote about Joadja when I was down there sitting amongst the ruins…     20140926-img_5604-1

If you do find yourself on the area, drop in for a visit. It is a place that will capture both the historian and the artist in you.

Written by David Johnson
December 2016

https://communicatingcreatively.wordpress.com/2016/05/01/solitary-moments/

For further information about Joadja, click on the link below:
http://www.joadjatown.com.au/about.html

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A Lasting Friendship

by communicatingcreatively, posted in Poetry

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State Of Mind

by communicatingcreatively, posted in Photography

When you go out to photograph, what ‘state of mind’ are you in?

Do you go out with an idea in mind, or do you ‘free-wheel?’

Both approaches are valid, depending on what you want to achieve. I have to say that for many years I would either pick a subject e.g. I might choose to photograph a Sunrise but have no real goal of what I wanted to capture, and so I would come home with anything, or sometimes I would just set off with my camera and ‘follow the light’ and see where it would take me.

IMG_0456Both of the above approaches produced some excellent images, some average images and of course many ‘learning experiences.’

One day at a meeting of a ‘Photo Group’ I was involved with, we were viewing a of my images when one of the members, Chris Donaldson asked me ‘what I was trying to communicate with the image?’ My answer was that “I wasn’t trying to communicate anything” I just merely  took the image for fun.

As Chris mentioned, whether or not I was intentionally trying to communicate anything, didn’t matter as I was still communicating. That day, I changed the way I viewed photography. Up to that point (even though subconscious1016358_10204241084941073_5423550170437646927_nly I knew I was communicating) I wasn’t photographing for that reason. I was just photographing because I had fun.

I still have fun to this day, but since that conversation I have approached photography in a different way, in a more thoughtful way.

Next time you go out to photograph, think about why you are going and what you want to communicate?

Written by David Johnson
November 2016