The natural world draws beauty from Tasmanian photographer
One of the stars of Tasmania's Living Artists' Week this year was Rod Westbrook whose remarkable photographic images of the natural world have featured in television and radio stories as well as articles in many places. Rod's father placed a camera in his hand when he was three and started a life-long love of capturing beauty through the lens of a camera.
Rod was a feature artist during Living Artists' Week and he gave a guest lecture at the Tranquile Gallery at Port Sorell. He is inspired by photographers who use alternative processes, such as Man Ray and his "Rayograms" also known as photograms. Rod uses a custom-built enlarger and arranges his elements between the machine's light source and its projection lens. The image obtained is hence a negative and the effect is often quite similar to an x-ray.
"I was born with spina bifida which means I can't climb mountains and get into the wilderness. That's why I started using the old-world technique of photograms that I am now interpreting in a new way which I call Rodergrams.
"Because of my mobility restrictions, my Rodergrams focus on the things that others may take for granted - the veins in the leaves, the seeds in cucumbers, the intricate patterns that are so perfect in nature. These are things that many people don't notice and they are the inspiration behind my work," he says.
See Westbrook's work at http://users.bit.net.au/Rodergrams/slicesofnature/
