Gerhard Saueracker, Perth
Member Since March 2016
Artist Statement For me, photography, like life itself, began in the sea. I was a committed scuba diver in my youth, and bought an underwater camera as soon as I could afford one. Bringing images of the life I'd observed underwater into my home allowed me to identify and study the life I'd seen, and I developed a strong interest in sea life. The challenges and triumphs of underwater photography also sustained my interest in diving, especially when I started selling images through a photographic agency.
My interests eventually evolved and moved onto land, and wildflowers. Having relied on artificial light throughout my underwater photography career, the subtleties of of using available light were a challenge and inspiration to me. Photographing wildflowers in Western Australia's incessant wind is also a challenge, so I decided to develop my technique on a non-moving subject - fungi. This project developed a life of its own, and culminated in the publication of illustrated articles on fungi in several magazines.
A trip to the harsh environment of Karijini National Park exposed me to elements of landscape that I'd never observed while seeking my fungus and flower subjects in the forests of the south-west. In the south-west most of the bold elements of landscape are smoothed over with trees, but in Karijini the sparse vegetation reveals in dramatic relief the shapes and colours of the land, and my eye now searches for these elements wherever I go.
To acknowledge my enthusiasm for subjects of both macro photography and landscape photography, and many points between, I have chosen the handle "macroscape."