An exhibition of photographs by Nadia McGleish opened at Altenburg on Friday night. The images range from expanses of local landscape to glimpses of the small details of the nature and built environment that together give Braidwood its historical ambiance. 

The clarity of some of the images can provoke a double take, while some have been blurred to add to the atmosphere. 

Nadia says : “Braidwood is my home and, for this series, my inspiration. The natural landscape is varied and changes markedly with the seasons, being particularly stark in winter. Old farmsteads dot the hills, filled with mementoes of the early settlers. Sometimes the corner of an old building reveals a tableau of objects frozen in time; past activity remembered only in detritus. 

Time moves on, like the blur of hedgerows whooshing past unnoticed in the rush to get somewhere. Photography brings the instant into focus. It reveals and defies the flux of time, and tantalizes with glimpses of the eternal present. A photograph expresses the “decisive moment”. Should I turn the car back, or slow down to get a picture? The light changes, the bird flies. 

This series is inspired by street and documentary photographers, especially women pioneers like Sonya Noskowiak and Laura Gilpin. Some of them were mothers like myself, who hauled large format cameras and wooden tripods up mountainsides to capture the poetry of place. Fortunately I had the luxury of a car for transport, with my toddler singing in the back seat and a very portable digital camera, lightweight tripod and gumboots at the ready in the front passenger seat.

Since the earliest days of photography, artists have enhanced the photographic image to bend reality. I am happy when the final printed image looks the way I saw it through the camera lens. I love the ambiguous image that rewards a second look. Photography is my meditation. I am always learning and surprised by the visual world.”

The images in this series are printed using archival pigments on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag by local printer Stephen Best of Macquarie Editions.