The Home Page of Wilderness Landscape Photography - Laurie McArthur
Colour and Black and White Images of the Wilderness Landscape
Photography by Laurie McArthur
My wilderness landscape website contains a fairly limited photographic style centering around digital images as well as medium format film images. Most of my work could, broadly, be called rural and wilderness landscape photography.
You'll also find a few portraits, a provocative artist's statement, some photography tips and my photo diary, which mostly concerns my photographic adventures and the business of getting out there and surviving in a destructively harsh environment.
Travel in the Wilderness Landscape
There's usually a fair bit of walking involved in wilderness landscape photography.
In the South Australian outback the country gets far too rough for the car and the distance is too vast for walking so I have an ATV (four wheel motorbike) set up to carry my photography gear and camp. On the site there is information about the bike, outback travel and camping and photo stories of my various photography trips.
Traveling on foot along the coastal inlets can be arduous with the lake edges often lined with impenetrable teatree and other scrub. The banks can be steep and rough and often meander among swamps and gullies. Here, my eight foot boat with four horse power motor is invaluable.
The Rugged Wilderness Landscape
For most of my life I've been an outdoor worker and outdoor recreationalist. I've suffered considerable UV damage to my skin and carry the ongoing pain of numerous physical injuries; the result of a prolonged encounter with the natural environment.
I don't see beautiful scenes of tranquility out there; I see a harsh environment that will kill you just for being there. I see rough, hard, sharp, abrasive, crumbling, random, hot, cold, wet, dry, soggy, windy, steep, loose, slippery, rotten, smelly, biting, burning, glarey, stark, ugly, barren and so it goes on. That's the landscape that demands my attention and which I fondle in my imagination. It's in my heart; it's how the wilderness is for me.
Bega - Central Town of the Bega Valley
Bega, lying in a horseshoe of the Bega River and opposite the junction with the Brogo River, is a town built around the river and river flats.
Bega, built on the undulating hills that overlook the fertile dairy farming and cropping land, which to a great extent fuels the Bega economy.
Bega, on the Far South Coast of New South Wales, about halfway between Melbourne and Sydney, is my home and my home base for wilderness landscape photography.
The Bega Valley, with its rivers, agricultural country and administrative significance, gives its name to our local government area, the Bega Valley Shire.
The Bega Valley Shire extends along the coast from Bermagui in the north, beyond Eden to the Victorian border in the south, about two and a half hours driving time, and inland to to the top of the coastal escarpment, about an hour and a quarter's drive from the coast.
The broad diversity of country included in the Bega Valley Shire, facilitates major industries such as fishing, timber, dairying and the leading and growing tourism industry.
Wilderness Landscape Photography
It is in the context of the diverse landscape of natural coast and mountain country that I photograph the wilderness landscape.
- More photography and photo story websites by Laurie McArthur of southimage.net
- Sapphire Coast Surf Club
- ATV Camping Trip
- Bega Valley - Portrait of a Dairy Family
- Bega Shop Window
- Aragunnu Camping
- Bega Show
- Wilderness Travel - my blog
- Sapphire Coast News News, sport, entertainment and weather - Sapphire Coast, Bega Valley
- Travels of Enid and Dale My daughter's blog.
- Hunger on Two Legs Stories from my dad's childhood.
Please note: These sites are at varying levels of completion.