Clearing (Auckland Festival of Photgraphy 2010)

For my final review I made a trip to the OrexArt Gallery to see some photography from the Auckland Festival of Photography, on show was 'Clearing' by Ellie Smith.

For me the photographs are distinctly New Zealand without being focused on anything too 'kiwiana'. The work also evokes a sense of childhood, all works tend to be set beneath or around towering pines making you feel dwarfed and somewhat humbled by their presence, there is so much in the images that reminds me of family holidays and rural New Zealand, so much so that you find yourself trying to remember if you had been there before.

Below from left: A Clearing and Clearing, Whangarei Heads


In her statement Smith, recognises that pine forests are both "a symbol of colonial invasion" and also hold a great allure she remembers "ma[king] huts in the pine trees as a child". I can relate to both of these things, I especially think back to a camp we used to visit annually until one year we turned up and all the trees that we used to play under were gone. Viewed as an entire collection the images she portrays are very real, and hold a lot of impact. Smith has used a lot of contrasting images that are still closely linked and show the very changable landscape that surrounds us, because the images also seem so familiar we feel like the felled trees in some of the images could be anywhere which seems to the viewer quite close to home and sad.

Below from left: Unusual light, Urquharts Bay and Burnt pines, near Rototuna


I really enjoyed this exhibit and found that I do enjoy photography in comparison to a lot of other art forms. In this exhibit I found an emotional connection to the work, I felt protective of an environment that I recognised as my own backyard and the black and white prints were very powerful as was the balance between nature and urban influence in the shots. Smith seems to have consciously allowed a human element to enter a great many of her shots as if suggesting we are living so close with nature that our presence will ultimately be found every where, even more so as time progresses. The use of pine trees through this series is quite interesting and raises a good point, you don't often consider that the pine trees we are all so used to seeing are actually introduced to New Zealand, this could be interpreted as a warning to us settlers that we need to be aware of the impact we are having on our environment and to leave some of the past untouched so we can remember what the scenery used to look like.