Utzonopia

"These, the first ever series of The Utzons were taken quite by accident at 3.00am one winter's morning in 2025. I was at the top of Sydney Opera House Steps at 2.45am with only a Leica & a Manfrotto tripod, and a newly created piece of experimental hardware hardware I'd made to sit between the camera and the tripod footer (which I called a "Voodoo Head" after Jimi Hendrix), and, an uncaring security guard who'd seen plenty of photographers in the forecourt of the architectural clitoris of this icon of modern civilisation. 

Reason I was there wasn't to actually photograph it and that's despite the fine technology at my disposal. The hour before, I'd taken up a position on the opposite side of Sydney Harbour behind the Bridge at a small urban headland named Blues Point. At that time, despite having taken hundreds of photos of that Bridge I'd never taken one that satisfied my creative inventiveness. Easily, I'd convinced myself that if I'd spent all night snapping and trying to solve this error in my portfolio, I'd overcome whatever it is about the coat-hanger I couldn't get to boogie in my frame. As a full-moon was behind me low in the west, I figured I'd drive to the Opera House and get a position near the Bennelong to capture its lunar shroud through the Bridge herself. At face value, it was the perfect plan.

But when it came to capturing the Bridge, my newly invented self-fabricated "Voodoo Head" failed miserably for a few reasons. Too much moonlight, I was too far away for the lens I was using and not even brilliance of one of the best Leicas going on its best day could make up for any of my miscalculations. The moon was way too bright for what I wanted to achieve and it would take me another year of trying to get close to something magical which I could leave to those to follow.

Very much all dressed up with no place to go, it was time to give up, stay exactly where I was and make the best of it. And, from the very first frames I took of the Opera House (where incidentally I'd performed at, got my first kiss, been thrown into the harbour from when I turned 21 & had been at in October 1973 the day it was opened); it was at these moments of discovery, all those harmonics of history, light and luck, which will stay with my spirit long after these atoms I've borrowed have been scattered far to all corners of the universe, and beyond.

Creativity is about problem solving. When in the zone of the eye-piece of the viewfinder, instinct intersects. The time it takes to achieve a perfect exposure, you can feel it in your hand and eye. When using the Voodoo Head, I'm blinded briefly while the exposure is actually being taken, yet I'm still manipulating the camera instinctively to touch the radius of the idea circles in my mind. Then, the flash of a result. The way the Leica in this instance was set-up, I got to see the exposure's form just briefly in black and white which is how I choose to take photographs. Yes, I still see myself as a black and white photographer primarily. Form and light to my mind favours it when taking the photo, but not for when it's printed. I think I agree with the notion "Colour shows, but black and white reveals," yet for the final printed result, I think that for everything other than the human form, the reverse of that is often true.  When you see exhibitions where I photographer offers both, I feel that unless it's a fellow human being that in order to have the same impact as a colour print, the black and white needs to be three or four times larger to be as dynamic and engaging. 

But that's just me."