We formed our photographic business, Island Imaging, in 2002 as a response to demand from the local community and tourists to purchase prints of my landscape photographs. We had moved in 2001 from comfortable and cosy Wiltshire, in the South West of England, to the wild and windswept King Island, in the Bass Strait, between Tasmania and Australia.

The main purpose of the move was a desire to practice my main occupation as a General Practitioner in a remote setting. I certainly found myself with many challenges in that regard, and photography became and remains my creative outlet, helping me to retain some sanity in the high pressure, high stress environment of medicine.

Approximately 60km north to south and 40km wide, King Island is famed for it’s beef and dairy produce, lobster and abalone, and, more ominously for it’s tragic history of shipwrecks. In the path of the Roaring Forties, and surrounded by heavy surfs and jagged reefs, it has been the site of more wrecks than anywhere else in Australia, and also the most loss of life in a single wreck. It now boasts the tallest lighthouse in the Southern hemisphere. It is a beautiful and unspoilt spot, with pristine sea, pure air, bountiful wildlife and stunning beaches.

I was fortunate in the sense that King Island has a strong and tight knit community, who were very supportive of my efforts and many times took me or directed me to locations well off the beaten track.

After 3 great years on King Island, we moved to St Helens on the North East coast of Tasmania. This had even more variety of landscape available within a short drive - white sand beaches fringed with red granite rocks, ancient bush, waterfalls and mountains. We took several trips to the classic iconic scenes of Dove Lake, Cradle Mountain etc and developed great respect for the classic photographs of the great Peter Dombrovskis, who remains perhaps my most admired exponent of fine art landscape photography. 

We now find ourselves in the city of Perth, Western Australia - the most isolated capital city of a country or state in the world. Although a different type of landscape - i.e. rather flat! - Perth has fine beaches, interesting buildings and a huge river, with many other impressive features within the state a drive away. However, it being an enormous state, the drive is often days, rather than hours, so it has been a challenge finding the time to make photographic outings and balancing this against my busy day job as a GP, and also finding time for our 3 children and dog! We can't hope to compete against the full time professionals in this regard, but photography remains for me more of a passion and creative interest rather than a money-making pursuit.
 

I became interested in photography after buying a cheap SLR camera prior to a family holiday. Addiction was immediate! Fascinated both by the technology and the creative craft of producing beautiful and meaningful photographs, I have striven to improve my skills ever since. Coming to Australia has given me opportunities for photography I’d have never had in England, and I’ve been lucky enough to be at the right place at the right time on a few occasions to put together an ever-growing portfolio.

Like most photographers, I have a great fascination and love of the equipment available to assist us in our efforts. I have used many different systems over the last few years, and now mainly use a Hasselblad 6*6cm medium format system, and an Ebony 45SU 4*5" large format system. I also use the Hasselblad Xpan, a great portable high quality 35mm panoramic camera. I have previously also used the Fuji GX617 system, a Rollei 6*6cm camera, which I did not find as elegant as the Hasselblad, and a Canon EOS 1Ds digital 35mm system, which I never got on with. I continue to shoot with Fuji Velvia slide film for it's warm and saturated palette.

My interest lies within shooting traditional film, and producing the image in the camera, rather than digital manipulation via Photoshop. I am certainly not alone in thinking that fine art photography in many ways has taken a retrograde step in this digital age. I am also developing an increasing interest in black and white photography.

I always use the camera on a tripod (I favour the Manfrotto 055B, heavy but rock solid and quick to set up) with a cable release. Sometimes I use a polarising filter, to cut down glare from water or foliage, but caution needs to be taken to avoid an artificial, over-polarised sky, which stands out a mile and looks wholly unreal. A set of Lee split neutral density graduated filters are essential to keep a scene within the narrow dynamic range of slide film, to prevent the sky looking too bright and burnt out, or shadow areas a sea of murky black. Vivid colours are achieved by photographing within the "golden hours" around dawn and late evening, or sunset, when the sun is low in the sky and gives a golden light.

As a note on the panoramic format, although impressive when used well, it has in my opinion been somewhat over-utilised by photographers within the last few years, with in my view a very much "me-too" approach being taken. I have therefore decided to move towards 6*6cm and 4*5" as my preferred formats, or crops thereof, not least as these are the formats of some of my main influences, Charlie Waite in the UK with 6*6, and Joe Cornish and Peter Dombrovskis on 4*5".

We really hope you enjoy the website, and please feel free to email us for any further information. Any feedback either positive or negative about the site would be most welcome.

Richard Newton.