I leave for a short photo trip to Claypans in the Murray Mallee in South Australia tomorrow morning (Saturday 15th, June). It’s only for a couple of days, to allow me to do some black and white photographs of some of the scenes that I’d scoped when returning to Adelaide from the Wentworth trip. I will also explore around the nearby Copeville and Galga region.

The images are for the Absent History section (in a side gallery) of the upcoming Mallee Routes exhibition at the Murray Bridge Regional Gallery in December 2019. The other sections of the exhibition are Mallee Spaces (the main gallery) and Unknown Futures in another side gallery. The side galleries are a supplement to the core exhibition in the main gallery.

This sandstone church at Claypans is one of the scenes that I want to rephotograph with the 5×4 Sinar f1 and the Cambo 8×10. The digital colour version of the church, which can be seen here, is not suitable for the Absent History exhibition.

I am the only one in the group who is substantively interested in creating a body of photos from an absent history perspectives. This is a different perspective to that of photographing what currently exists in the various regions of the Mallee, since it explores a history that has been lost and forgotten in the present.