Journeys North

6 Charles Page SaraJiMine 1986 Gelatin silver print 22.5 x 23.2cm Lin Martin SherHumphries, coach/artist, Brisbane 1986-87 Gelatin silver print 38.5 x 48.5cm The photographs which form JCYUrneys North take a quasi-documentary approach in their observations of the various lifestyles to be found in Queensland today. This is not to say that the approach is that of a recorder and not of an interpreter, but that all of the six photographers employ, to varying degrees, aesthetic concepts relating to composition, tonal value and symbolism to convey their interpretations of the overall theme of community life in Queensland. The images which make up the six portfolios become a detailed document of lifestyles, attitudes and values of Queensland society in the late 1980s. As images in JCYUrneys North acknowledge the fact that Queensland's landscape is transient and subject to human intervention, the portfolios have become a record of Queensland's natural as well as social features in 1988. Each of the six photographers travelled to different regions of the State and chose to address the project's theme in a way which related to them and to their earlier work and interests. Graham Burstow, who lives in Toowoomba, has produced photographs during the last three decades which concentrate on lifestyles in south– east Queensland. His portfolio for JCYUrneys North continues this interest and looks in particular at the way outdoor leisure activities in this area are oriented around such spectacle events as surf lifesaving carnivals, beach beauty contests and car-part swap meetings. A small number of images present outdoor activities which relate to work such as scenes of construction sites. Lin Martin, who is originally from North Queensland, travelled along the coast of the State and produced a series of portraits which reveal the character of people within their own environments. This approach appeared in her 1984 exhibition Scrrne Women, in which she examined how women perceive themselves and how they wish to be photographed.While in many ways her subjects appear as 'typical' Queenslanders, each has a unique personality which emerges from the rapport developed between photographer and sitter. Robert Mercer chose to record the way of life of Aboriginal people in remote areas of the far north. He travelled to Cairns and then to Aboriginal communities at Laura, Yarrabah, Kowanyama and the