Viewing platforms: the Otway Ranges, Beech Forest (entrance) & the Otway Ranges, Hopetoun Falls (mobile phones)2010
Artist statement: Viewing platforms is an extension of my PhD research and explores the relationships that are played out in the Australian landscape between tourists and remote destinations. These photographs have been made at particular landscape sites (Uluru, Broken Hill, etc) incorporating the uniquely Australian long distances entailed in ‘journeying’ to these locations that are considered part of the tourist experience. Within these spaces of transience and awe the tourist infrastructure that is imposed over particular landscapes (signs, platforms, etc) enacts the space as a ‘stage’ for not only visitors, but also for guides, other tourist industry workers and local inhabitants and the politics (that is often not overtly obvious) that dictate subsequent interactions. The work is presented in book and exhibition format where images are grouped together or paired to establish micro‐narratives within the overall story.
Also known as Giclee prints or bubble-jet prints, pigment ink-jet prints are generated by computer printers from digital or scanned files using dye-based or pigment-based inks. A series of nozzles spray tiny droplets of ink onto the paper surface in a precise pattern that corresponds to the digital image file. In dye-based prints the ink soaks into the paper, whereas in pigment-based prints the ink rests and dries on top of the paper surface.
Whilst the term is broad, pigment ink-jet prints have come to be associated with prints produced on fine art papers. They are the most versatile and archival method of printing available to photographers today. A wide variety of material on which an image can be printed with such inks are available, including various textures and finishes such as matte photo paper, watercolour paper, cotton canvas or pre-coated canvas.
