Bill Hatcher Photography

If I were an elf this is a place I could call home, Boranup Forest, Western Australia.

Cockatoo Island

Are adventure photographers inherently selfish people? Maybe we are. For the last few weeks I have been enjoying climbing, hiking, paddling and biking all over New South Wales, Australia, but you don't see any photographic proof of that here. Did I make any photos while I was out, a few, but most of the time my hands were full of sweaty bike bars or trying to

Green Sydney in the Rain

For a city of it's size Sydney has a remarkable amount of bush and green space.  I've taken every opportunity to explore many of these places on foot and on bike since I have been here. The last three days have seen the city hit by a heavy rain so being a photographer and curious about what the bush looks during a heavy rain I walked

Australia Geographic Magazine: Forestry Feature Story

In the July/August 2011 Australia Geographic magazine issue 103 you will see my photo coverage about the state of Australia forests and the forestry industry. This is a very hot topic right now in Australia, the 18 page feature story includes images I made in the course of shooting for the story in forests in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania.The photos look at the modern face of logging in Australia's public forests as well as portraits of people involved and working in Australia's forest industry and forest conservation.

I've included a few pages from the story below. 

Photo of the Week: Temperate Rain Forest

This was a photo I made last year hiking on a track above the Fox Glacier in Westland National Park on the West Coast of New Zealand. From the coastal plain looking up toward the green hillsides on both sides of the Fox Glacier you wouldn't even guess at the complexity that lies under the forest canopy. 

The forest around the Fox Glacier is a classic example of a temperate rain forest.The Fox Glacier region receives 4.7 Meters (185 inches) of rain a year! Where I was living in Colorado rainfall is measured in inches and 13 inches is an average rainfall in a year.  For comparison in Sydney the average rain fall is 1.19 meters ( 47 inches) a year and in Seattle the average rainfall is 1.09 meters (43 inches) per year. 

Murray River after the floods

I just returned from my second visit to the Murray River in Victoria. The Murray is Australia's longest river and the level of the river is just dropping now after many months of flooding.I wanted to see for myself what the river looks like after the flood. Many areas are still not accessable by road so a boat is the best way to view the river. The photos here are of the river red gum trees that line the banks of the Murray below Barmah. It was remarakable to see the tangled root systems of these tough old trees.

 

 

Photography and Place

Yesterday I wandered the halls of the Art Gallery in New South Wales in Sydney to view the current free photography exhibit "Photography and Place: Australian landscape photography 1970's until now". The exhibit shows the work of 18 photographers including works by Australian photo luminaries I have long admire including Bill Henson and Ricky Maynard. The photography is by art photographers, but their approach to photographing the Australian landscape is not what I expected to see. What I expected to see were lots of arty-type concept works. What I did see were often simple representative images of the landscape. The photographers approach in these works was to record the landscape as would a historian or documentary photographer. I better stop there or I'll start sounding like a critic and not like a photographer.

The prints are often very big, like the 100x148cm images of wind swept ice in the Antarctic (is that in Australia?) by David Stephenson. You'll find mix of Black and White and the color prints. None of the photography in color was the easy to digest over saturated bright color landscape photography that is popular today. What I enjoyed most in this exhibit were Lynn Silverman's Horizons series she did in 1979 and Paul Ogier's new work from the Emu Field Atomic Test Site. In the exhibit are a couple of Rosemary Laing prints from her Heysen series from 2005, I don't like those as much as her earlier work.However, A couple of floors below are some Laing prints that might be for a new installation-the room was blocked from entry. The  Laing prints I could see include #2, of the burning car in the desert, are from her 2003 series titled "One dozen Unnatural Disasters in the Australian Landscape".

It was also nice to see some prints from the NSW Art Gallery collection that I have only see in books. Like the Perisher Valley prints by Ingeborg Tyssen.

If you have time you really should check out Photography and Place at the NSW Art Gallery. 

Celebrating small cameras

People often ask me what kind of camera I use. I name off a few brands and they walk away happy knowing that I am using the right stuff. But really the best camera is the one that happens be be in your hands when a photo needs to be taken. 

This was the case last year when I was skiing in the backcountry in Northern Arizona and came across a mountain lion deer kill. The lions tracks were everywhere and the carcass had been stripped to the bone by the large cat. The camera I had with me was a little Canon G-11 and this is the camera I used to document this winter kill. I even used the G-11's tiny on camera flash for some of the photos.

This week, more than a year after I made the photos ( I have a bit of a backlog going now), I took a look at the photos and I found the digital files look great from that tiny point and shoot G-11. I am just happy I had a camera along.

 

 

Running the Franklin River circa 1980

Here's a video of Bob Brown running the Franklin River in 1980 in an inflatable duckie. Bob pioneered the use of small inflatable boats on the Franklin and has boated the river many times. Today Senator Bob Brown is leader of the Australian Green party . In this video he's boating on the Franklin with no helmet, no pfd and no fear.  

The Franklin Wild River from Forrest McCarthy on Vimeo.

 

 

Packrafting the Franklin River Tasmania

I am just returning from packrafting the Franklin River in the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park in South West Tasmania with Roman Dial and his son Rome. The Franklin River is Australia's equivalent of the Grand Canyon for its sense of remote wilderness and challenging boating. We took 5 days exploring the 100 kilometer long canyon from the confluence with the Collingwood to Sir John Falls on the Gordon River. Click here for Roman's video from the adventure.

The rivers fast moving waters offer kayakers, rafters and especially packrafters with day after day of challenging white water. Our first camp, perfect for three people, was the Huon Pine camp ten kilometers down stream from the Collingwood-Franklin confluence. The Huon Pine that is this camps name stake is over a meter wide and is estimated to be almost 1,500 yeas old. This Huon, seen in the picture above, has a perfect view of the Franklin and grows just above the high flood zone 18 meters above the river level .

Scouting river left on the lower rapids of Thunder Rush in the Franklin Rivers Great Ravine. Our portage around this rapid involve a high portage requiring some fixed line and a short rappel back to the river.