In an earlier post I mentioned the Shimmer Photographic Festival that was organized by the City Of Onkaparinga. As part of this photo biennale there was a 'Meet the photographer' session at the Arts Centre Port Noarlunga.

I had intended to go to the session but wasn't able to. So I will explore the different photographers talking at the session on junk for code over the next week or so. One of those speaking was Ronda Wallis, a South Australian photographer whose work I did not know, and whose roots are in the low tech or toy camera end of photography.

Wallis' images from her Beckon a Deep Ocean are concerned with the coastal environment, are characterised by a low angle of view and a measure of distortion, and are taken using pinhole cameras the work shifts the viewer’s usual perspective.

There is a sense of colour-field painting in some of the images of the suburban beach that is coupled with a reference to the sublime. This is not a beach for summer frolicking and play in gentle surf. It is a sea that one is wary of. It expresses danger; a sense of being overwhelmed. An image that evokes our memories of the sea as a child? Is the pinhole camera perspective akin to one reminiscent of childhood – a time during which our sense of self develops often influenced by the surrounding landscape.