Chris spent his childhood roaming the abandoned mines and dumps of the outback town of Cobar, NSW. This playground morphed into a career as a mining engineer on the Tasmanian West Coast, the Pilbara in WA, Mudgee NSW (where he now lives), and the Hunter Valley of NSW.

At about 10 he took his first photographs, and at 12 was developing and contact printing 127 film. He badgered the P&C at his boarding school to purchase an enlarger, and photography has remained a passion ever since. He obsessively documented 6 years of boarding school, four years of College, and numerous country shows, balls etc.

In his late teens and early 20’s Chris was very active in the Australian Photographic Societies Portfolio service, where he developed a critical eye for form and composition in a photo. This ‘eye’ became quite distinct in his work, where these elements are strongly expressed.

Naturally there was overlap of mining and photography over the years, and Chris’s employment allowed scope to take photos “in company time”. Nature, machinery and people are the essential elements of mining, and these are represented in the subject matter of this exhibition.

After many years of putting prints away in a box, Chris began entering competitions in Mudgee. This lead to a solo exhibition. Now he has dived into his archives and selected photos that were taken while he was being paid to do something else between 1969 and 2009. Photos taken in mines, but not necessarily of them.

The early work is scanned from negatives, and inevitably digital crept in later. All the images in this exhibition are digitally printed using Epson Ultrachrome K3 inks on Epson or Hahnemuhle paper. Photoshop was used sparingly, mainly replicating techniques available in the darkroom.

May 28 - June 21 2010out and complete thd send or deliver it to FairviewArtspace, 6 Henry