Fotoamator
Ghosts in the photographs Ghosts in the survivor’s testimony Ghosts in the fading street video Sudden slides and stops in the story The jumps jar Genewein the model bureaucrat Genewein the fotoamator Genewein the Nazi…
Jokar Photography
John Boyd Macdonald
Jokar Photography
John Boyd Macdonald
If the Land Could Speak
I met ‘The Land’ in a dream. He looked to be about 35, average height, with dark hair slicked back from a smooth broad forehead, pencil-thin moustache and sideburns. Good teeth. He was wearing a…
Landschap, landskip and landscape
The Dutch said it first. Around 1500, they began to use the noun landschap to describe a new kind of artwork depicting ‘natural inland or coastal scenery’. It spread to use in other Germanic languages…
Ten-Mile Stare Exhibition
My new photographic exhibition (Ten-Mile Stare: Monaro / Snowy Landscapes) will be at the Foyer Gallery, School of Art, at the Australian National University. 34 framed images of Monaro and Snowy Mountains landscapes, incorporating text…
Postcards From Canberra Exhibition
An exhibition of Postcards From Canberra opened tonight at PhotoAccess at the Manuka Arts Centre. It features more than 350 postcard-sized prints from 39 photographers, each offering a different perspective on the town we all live…
Jack the Rammer
The Bushranger is an iconic figure in the mythology of colonial Australia. They still appeal to our sense of national self-identity because we see them as being brave, independent, charismatic, anti-authoritarian, and resourceful. Underdogs, tragic…
Railway
Even before the time that the railway reached Goulburn in 1869, there were calls for the line to be extended into the Monaro. The line to Cooma (through Queanbeyan, Michelago, Bredbo and Bunyan) was eventually…
Robinson-Smithson
George Augustus Robinson (1791-1866) was a key figure in the story of relations between European and Aboriginal Australians in the 19th Century. He arrived in Hobart in 1824, and from 1829 to 1834 he undertook…
George Augustus Robinson
George Augustus Robinson travelled across the Monaro in 1844, in the course of his duties as ‘Chief Protector of Aborigines’ for the Port Phillip District. The journal that he kept during that journey provides some…
And the Country Was Taken Up
Kate Grenville tells the story that, when she was in London researching for her novel The Secret River, she had a conversation with writer Melissa Lucashenko. She explained that she was in London looking for…
Damn (monumental masonry)
The Snowy Scheme entailed the construction of some 16 dams across the mountains, ranging in size from the huge (Eucumbene, with a capacity of nearly five billion cubic metres) to the tiny (Deep Creek, capacity…
All the cracks had gathered
Since its publication in The Bulletin in April 1890, Banjo Paterson’s The Man From Snowy River has come to exemplify the kind of bravery and bush skills that Australians like to identify with – even…
Monaro Merino Ngarigo Snow Hydro
The base photograph for this image was taken on The Arable Road, just at its junction with the Cooma-Jindabyne Road near the Cooma Airport. The ‘real’ sign marks the boundary of the ‘Brookfield Park’ property.…
Watson’s Crags
Watson’s Crags lie on the steep western side of the Kosciuszko Main Range, between Mt Twynam and Mt Townsend. It’s a rugged and rarely visited part of the mountains, several hours walking or skiing from…
Cooma Welcomes You
The road down through the Monaro towards Cooma is lined with innumerable advertising billboards, navigational signposts and ‘Welcome to…’ signs. My favourite is a sign which simply declares: “Monaro Merino Country”. It’s straightforward, unequivocal, indeed…
Wilderness
What we now refer to as “The Snowy Mountains” region was once, and for tens of thousands of years, the exclusive domain of indigenous people. In particular it was home to the Ngarigo, but was…