Exhibition: Southern Light (Melbourne, 13 February - 10 March 2024)

Southern Light, an exhibition of David Neilson’s photographs of Antartica is showing at the Angela - Robarts Bird Gallery,
 Gasworks Arts Park until the 10th of March.




David’s book, Southern Light was published in 2012. The book surveys a remarkable body of work from six trips to both continental Antarctica and a number of Antarctic Islands. Much of David's work was photographed on film using a Horseman view camera.

Thank you. I will definitely visit.

Many thanks for this information.

I was able to visit on Monday and found the images quite good, with a couple of them being stunning.

I also managed to look through his book, "Chasing the Mountain Light". South west Tasmania, Patagonia, Antarctica, Karakoram, and the Australian, New Zealand Alps, and European Alps. 305mm by 325mm, so a coffee table book worthy of being on a coffee table. I really was impressed by that book.

Back to the exhibition, all of the images were printed by the photographer using (presumably) the latest ink jet technology. Interestingly the photographer has expressed the image sizes using the horizontal (left to right) number first, something I found slightly bizarre.

The widest image, 510mm x 1700mm looked fantastic and appeared to be sold out. Unfortunately due to limited space it was hung quite high on the wall; opera glasses would have worked well here.

There was a brief explanation of his film camera, or at least one of his film cameras. This was a Horseman 4x5" camera showing it kitted with a 65mm lens. The camera and the ball joint on the tripod seemed to have been lightened by drilling holes in places that wouldn't damage the function of either. Similar in effect to what many people do with racing automobiles. I can well imagine that every gram saved is a blessing when getting to some of the extreme places depicted in the images presented. Mention was made that he could do six exposures before reloading, so I assume he was using a Grafmatic film holder; that must have been fun.