Wild maiden hair fern

Australia’s Great Dividing  Range that runs near my home provides several ecosystems and within those, countless smaller ecosystems.  In this small landscape, an overhanging rock provided an opportunity for some delicate fauna and flora.

The Maidenhair fern prefers a moist and protected environment and the local spider can cast its web without concern of in inadvertent damage from large animals or wind-blown debris.

The result is an enchanting scene with gentle light illuminating the leaves, rock and intricate spider’s web.

photo for sale - maidenhair fern

This image is priced at $10 for private use only.

Suits printing at 8×12 or 16×24 inches.

This image is available for instant digital download without watermark, ready to print.

 

If you wish to purchase a framed or canvas of this image. Please contact me via mattATplusoneDOTcomDOTau  (replace the capitals with relevant items!)

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Path in the grass

Near the summit of the Great Dividing range, a place near to my home I found this path through a sea of late winter grass heads. While attractive in colour, it took on a mystical feel in black and white.

Path through the grass

This image is proportioned for a up to a 9×14 or 18×28  inch print. A print with black matting looks amazing.

Photo for sale at just $10 for private use only.

This image is available for instant digital download without watermark, ready to print.

If you wish to purchase a framed or canvas of this image. Please contact me.


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Shells on wood

Like castaways clinging to wreckage, these small Goose or stalked barnacles (Lepas anatifera) have grown on a piece of driftwood.

One can only guess the ocean journey that brought them to this South Pacific shore!

This beautiful colourful photo is for sale and would suit many homes and add a wonderful point of focus and interest in any room. It would also go wonderfully with one of my other coastal closeups.

Goose or stalked barnacles (Lepas anatifera) on driftwood

This image is 24×16 inches, but will print smaller just fine.

$10 for private use only.

This photo is available for sale as a digital download without watermark, ready to print.

If you wish to purchase a professionally framed print or a canvas of this image please contact me.

Colourful sponge

A colourful orange sponge, cast ashore on a beach on the Mid-North coast of NSW, Australia, by a strong sea.

Laying abandoned and dying….colour seeping from its outer edges. Through observation of the small things we can marvel at the intricacies of nature.

If you own a coastal home and have need for a strong art to lift a dark place or print larger with a generous frame to make a bold statement in any room.

Orange sponge on beach

This image is 24×16 inches, but will print smaller just fine.

$10 for private use only.

This photo is available for sale as a digital download without watermark, ready to print.

If you wish to purchase a professionally framed print or a canvas of this image. Please contact me.

Eucalyptus blossom

In Australia, as in many countries around the world where they have been planted and flourished, the Eucalyptus, or as we Australians call them ‘gum trees’ often have magnificent flowers.

Many flowers are very small and high above the ground, often abuzz with bees. Others, like in this photo are  grafted and have especially large flowers. This specimen was in a park, so I have no way of tracking down what hybrid this is.

Eucalyptus Flowers

Downloaded image does not have watermark

This high resolution image size is 40x30cm (12.16 inches), but can be printed larger.

$10 for private use only.

If you wish to purchase a professionally framed giclee print or canvas of this image, please contact me.

 

 

 

Sunflower

Not all sunflowers are created equal – while the commercial varieties provide maximum seed and oil yield, others are valuable in different ways, such as visual beauty.

The beauty can be enhanced the isolation on a white background. This clean and bright image would look great printed and displayed in any home to bring some sunshine into any room.

The beauty of sunflower

Square image of sunflower on white background. Downloaded does not have watermark

 

$10 for private use only.

This image is available for digital download, ready to print.

If you wish to purchase a 10×10 inch – 25.5×25.5cm) framed or canvas of this image fior USA or Aust delivery, please contact me.

Field of bails – Felton, Queensland.

Felton, on Queensland’s Darling Downs has some of the most productive soil in the world. This means it can grow crops with better yield than most soils which means it is very important in the greater scheme of food production.

It is also a place that for a number of years was threatened with destruction by the resources boom. Fortunately the efforts of locals won and mining has retreated.

This field of large round  bales, the secondary resource of the main irrigated crop of, I suspect, mung beans or other high value summer crop (you can see the irrigation infrastructure in the mid-background) sit ready for loading onto trucks in the late afternoon April light.

summer crop bails darling downs qld

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This photograph is for sale at just $10 for private use only.

This image is available for digital download without large watermark, ready to print. Image size suits printing at 10×34.5 inches or larger and would look magnificent on any wall!

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Self Portrait

With selfies being so prevalent these days the concept of taking a self portrait is perhaps somewhat tainted.

However the process of taking a considered photo of yourself is one that allows the opportunity to test and experience not only poses but also the emotion of being the subject, something a bit foreign when you are the person normally holding the camera!

So it was in this instance. I am luck enough that my lounge has two large windows allowing for good lighting without any extra effort. So it was that I could experiment with several poses and expressions.

Finally I came up with this, perhaps rather bland expression – perhaps I was to involved in the technical aspects than thinking about a favourite time or place!

self portrait - BW

Vertical living

Hidden in a tumble of fallen timber and shaded from the sun, this magic vertical community thrives. The micro-climate is influenced by its location, 1,150 metres above sea level.

The cascade of delicate grey hoods forms a uniform, resource sharing wall.

fungi garden australia

Vertical Living – click to enlarge

Granddad’s Orchard

granddads farmThis is another 500 word story I submitted to ABC Open for their 500 words: Endings project.  They say what goes around comes around.

Granddad’s Orchard

I watched as my grandfather carefully cut the apricots in half and set them on wire trays that slid perfectly into the old fridge. He then lit the mound of sulphur and closed the door.

Drying apricots was a summer holiday ritual on his orchard in Victoria’s Goulburn Valley. A little bit of domestic activity amid the steady labours of seasonal workers in the orchard and the bustle of the packing shed.

The orchard sat on the banks of the Goulburn River and granddad had, for several decades after he carefully planted Granny Smith apple and cling peach trees in rows, nurtured the orchard into maturity and today it provided a deeply rooted backdrop to summer holiday fun. The special apricot trees were tucked away behind the packing shed and provided fruit for drying and nanna’s lovingly made jam.

I took delight in being bounced around on the three-point linkage of the old red John Brown tractor as we travelled up and down the green tunnel-like rows of trees. On special occasions, I was even allowed to drive at a crawl in first.

The orchard formed part of my grandfather’s identity; not only to me, but to the neighbouring farmers and the co-op where he sold the bulk of his crop.

*

The following summer the Greyhound bus took me down the Hume Highway to Violet town where granddad met me and we drove to the farm. However, the much-anticipated arrival was not the leafy green rows and seasonal bustle. Instead I was greeted by a landscape of destruction and silence.

Gone were the leafy rows, the small army of seasonal workers and the bustle of the early harvest. Instead it was a scene of death and devastation with uprooted trees pushed into long rows like silvery grey corpses.

No wonder granddad had been quite on the drive back.

A downturn in fruit prices from an oversupply was the reason, he’d said, plus the government was paying him compensation to pull out his trees. As a 12 year old, these were concepts I could not grasp. Instead of pesky clouds Rosella parrots being flushed from the orchard by the scare cannon, granddad, nanna and I watched black clouds of smoke from burning funeral pyres that darkened the sky and our hearts.

*

Forty years on, and it is happening again. The crackling fires from my grandfather’s orchard are being echoed across time with news that up and down the Goulburn Valley, thousand of acres of heart and soul are again wrenched from the ground, heaped and burned. Sadly, once more there is no money in fruit. The supermarkets twist the supply chain and it breaks at the weakest link – the local farm gate.

A glimmer of optimism flickers when I hear on the Country Hour of some innovative souls who rushed through a small first vintage of pear cider from stored fruit. Hope springs eternal.

My childhood Goulburn Valley links are rattled. Can I help slow the carnage? There should be an overseas value-add opportunity for this product. I call some trading company contacts in China. This would be an appreciative market and with a growing middle class, perfectly timed.

Traders in textiles are probably not the best contacts and weeks turn to months with no leads generated. Now, even if a market could be found, would there be enough trees left to supply even a small slice of a giant population?

Or once again will trees one day be planted at the start of another boom and bust cycle….

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