“Living in the Colac Otway Shire offers a unique array of natural landscapes, perhaps more than many other locations.
To the North and East of the shire is the large rural flatlands, to the West the salt lakes and volcanic plains, to the South the magical Otway Ranges and Great Ocean Road.
With such an array of landscapes within a short drive (usually under an hour) it’s hard not to find something that peaks my interest.
By far it’s the Otway Ranges and hinterland regions that keep dragging me back at every opportunity. As a photographer, I find myself traversing this region looking for the unique, the unusual, the thought provoking, whilst not ignoring the obvious. I often visit a location many times, it helps me to get a feel for it. This is important to me as I try and capture, in two dimensions, the sight, sound and smells that are the essence of the location. Lately this has driven a significant change in the way I present my work. It’s like a trigger has been pulled. That trigger has changed my post shoot processing and it seems I spend as much time writing about the location, the technical details, the emotion and thoughts from the shoot as I do working on my edits.
It’s hard to say what this trigger was, but increasingly, either in the field or whilst working on my images I have my young daughter with me. Born with Down Syndrome, and living an idyllic rural life style, she seems to have a natural attraction to the beautiful environment that we live in, and is showing increasing interest in my work. So perhaps this was the trigger that has led to my deeper focus.
In this era of social media, I take an approach of complete openness – sharing all the technical details, the how and the why. Perhaps this is the educator in me coming out into this artistic space – but I am always happy to provide advice and assistance to budding photographers. And in return I am often privy to locations that may well have otherwise be off-limits to me. This mentoring role, whilst time consuming, is very rewarding.
I am really looking forward to the future, more exploring, more capturing & more time spent enjoying this magic of our natural world. Whether it be the wonders of our local environment, or other equally amazing places across the globe.”
Tim Lucas
e: tim@digitalnature.com.au
