It's been a strange few months past, the passing of our Mum and the travel linked to that, eventually leading us to Tasmania in a hope to escape the madness for five minutes peace.
On arriving it felt somewhat familiar, almost like coming home, but having never visited before this feeling then became odd.

The cobbled streets and the relaxed pace all added to the mood, finding a world of incredible art and meeting wonderful artists breathed new life into us, with a blue sky day, we made our way to Port Arthur.

From the moment we entered the park it hit me, that heavy feeling I have experienced before, that feeling of having walked these paths before, it surrounded me like fog.
As beautiful as this place was, the feeling of desperation hangs in the air, the horror of being sent here as a prisoner, if you even survived the journey was haunting, maybe this is what I was feeling, some residue from the past or maybe it was something more.

We intend to return to Tasmania, but this time we will seek out natural beauty, the kind only place like Cradle Mountain can provide, like many before us and many yet to come.

May 4 - 6 the AIPP held the judging for entries in the Canon Australia Professional Photographer of the Year Awards 2007. Arguably the most prestigious photography awards in Australia. This was my first entry at the Canon APPA so I was understandably anxious and excited (also because I was just about to leave for my trip to Hawaii too!)

It was an intense experience and I would strongly urge anyone interested in photography to attend the judging simply to see some mind-blowing images and hear professional and experienced opinion in the judging by some of the biggest names in Photography.

I got to meet many of my photographic idols and the trade show in the exhibition buildings was responsible for wrenching huge wads of cash from me on some more toys to play with. I bought an Epson P 3000 to serve as a backup for my images to be taken overseas.

As for my images, I was pleased to have three of my four images receive awards, two silvers and a silver with distinction!

For information on the AIPP click here
For a look at the Award-winning images, click here

www.ianwallace.com.au

Tuesday the 1st of May saw the release of a ‘new-feel’ ‘Ian Wallace Gallery’ Website. Over the past few years many users of the website have been kind enough to provide me with feedback about the usability of my little bit of cyberspace, this has brought about various overhauls and incarnations of my site. In almost 5 years, this is overhaul 4 (and the biggest yet – although you would be forgiven in thinking that nothing has changed!) Most of the changes are in the ‘backend’ of the site – or simply put, the way it works.

There are many new and exciting features of the ‘new-feel’ site.
• The biggest change is the shop and gallery are now combined – you can simply put any image you are looking at into your shopping basket!
• By popular demand I have re-established a ‘send your friend’ email system – you can send an epostcard using my images to anyone. Simply select any image and it will give you an option to send to a friend!
• From a geek point of view – the gallery loads much faster as it is encrypted in a much more efficient fashion.
• There are significantly fewer clicks to get through the online shop
• The galleries have been reorganised
• There is now a lightbox feature allowing you to create slide shows and select images you like.
• When purchasing you can now track your orders’ progress and find out exactly when it ships.
• There is now a bigger selection of size and shapes for images you might wish to buy
• Images can be searched for using keywords.

I also have new Newsletter software, I will tell you all about that when I have gotten around to sending a newsletter with it!

Have a play with the new gallery here
Having trouble understanding the process – click here

www.ianwallace.com.au

Well this has been a week of mixed emotions but first things first: Saturday visits: A big hello to my good friend Douglas who visited over the Christmas period and sent me this photo (below). Loic, Georgie and Zoe made their first public appearance at the stall as a family, it didn't last very long as Zoe was getting a little grizzly due to her meal time getting closer – she must take after her dad!
Thanks to Rebecca for bringing in her family - most had received books for presents and wanted to come and chat about the adventures. I also enjoyed meeting Bill, a fellow photographer with more and funnier stories than I have heard in a long time. Thanks to everyone who visited!

(OK - I know i need a haircut!)
starting off badly:
Monday morning has been a ritual for me for the past 4 years, at 8.30 am precisely I call the Hobart City Council to try and get myself a market stall for the weekend. Most of the time it goes without a hitch - it takes about 15 minutes to get through and eventually I get rationed a site (usually in a completely different location to the previous week) this week the phone gods were not on my side, I took a little longer to get through and as a result - no stall! I was on the dreaded waiting list! Sometimes with as many as 50 people on it, the waiting list is a last chance for people to fill in the blank spots on the day.  This comes at the cost of not being able to set up until 8.00 am instead of my usual 6.00 am start.  This also means that I’m not able to get my car into Salamanca so I need to be able to carry everything in! To make things a little easier on me (and due to a slight drizzle) I decided to take only my books and canvas prints – the things that I could carry in and would be easy to set up.  Saturday rolled around and luckily I was given a nice site and within just a few minutes (it usually takes me over an hour) I was set up! My day went well, a few people were disappointed at the lack of photographs to peruse but it actually gave me much more time to spend with people rather than hunting for individual images! So, it would be much appreciated if you would keep your fingers crossed for me each Monday at around 8.30 am as I need all the help (and luck) that I can get!
it never rains it pours:
On Friday I organised a double dive to harvest some more underwater photographs for a project I am currently working on. Conditions were good and our dive guide Gary (Eaglehawk Dive Centre) took us to some magical places. I was so excited, I geared up first at a site called 'Little Waterfall Bay' and descended to 5 metres, deciding to start my photography at the top of a huge boulder - AAGGGHHHHHhhhhhh....... I just couldn't get the camera to work. I tried everything and realised that to have any hope of salvaging this dive time I would need to return to the boat, open the housing and see what magic I could perform. I spent 20 minutes trying not to drip into my housing on the rocking surface of the boat with no luck - it was broken. So I sat the dive out, waited for the other divers to return and decided to simply enjoy the second dive. I announced to the boat that whoever wanted to dive with me would be assured of seeing some interesting sights as I would be without my camera and, as luck would have it, that is usually when I see the most amazing things. Sure enough, my dive buddies and I stumbled across FIVE weedy sea dragons! ..........NO CAMERA!

(OK - this one was not one of the five - but they looked just like him!)
A sad ending:
On my return to Hobart, I took my sick camera to the camera hospital where I was told the worst news of the week - at least 4 weeks to repair!  Faced with this dilemma, I decided to purchase a second body (D200) to cover the service time and also to have a back up when I eventually have a flooding accident with my underwater adventures! (Not that I’m tempting fate!!) Not a planned purchase but the more I think about it the more sensible an idea I think it is.
So that was my week - not the best but certainly not the worst and all ended well with a great day at the market.
As I didn't get any underwater photographs to share with you, I have included a couple of Melbourne images I have just gotten around to uploading to my gallery – here’s hoping next week is a little easier on the emotions (and the wallet!)

thanks for reading
;-)
www.ianwallace.com.au

Saturday visits:

Firstly a big hello to anyone who popped into my stall on one of the rainiest days we have had for a long time in the Salamanca market. Unfortunately for visitors, loads of stallholders decided not to come so the market was somewhat bare, very unusual for this time of the year. That said, I watched for a couple of hours as a face painter sat, smiling, dripping wet, with paint streaking down her face, waiting hopefully for a break in the rain. She decided to leave after a couple of hours with no customers, the book she was reading was so wet that she was tearing the pages as she turned them - poor thing!

Hi to Stephen, David and Jean - the Canadian crew - don't forget to send me that photo!  To Barney - happy 84th birthday, and to Amy and Chris for bringing me a cup of coffee - I owe you one, probably a few by now!!

This image was taken simply to fill some time waiting for the sun to get a little lower in the sky. You would not believe how unstable the section of the pier was that I was standing on to take this photograph!

www.ianwallace.com.au