Shadows running into the blue forest

Through changes in subject matter, the photography of Wesley Stacey maintains his determined interest in the immediacy of vision and new ways of observing and recording the landscape. Stacey worked originally as a graphic designer and photographer for both the ABC and the BBC, before commencing freelance photography in 1969. Since then he has also been extensively involved in illustrating architectural books. Stacey's work from the 1970s embraces the sometimes blurred vision of the snapshot, including diverse sequences of photographs taken with an Instamatic camera that were often commercially processed. In later photographs of the bush, Stacey avoids the temptation to over-romanticise the landscape. Instead, his images record the environment, tall twisted trees, rocks, barren earth and the effects wrought by conditions such as fire. Rich textures and bright colours dominate the foregrounds, flattening some of the images like abstract canvases.