The beautiful landscapes of Collie and the South West have been captured for everyone to experience, through a newly published photographic book.
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The book Travelling in Australia’s South-West, by Perth-based author and photographer Lawrence Marshall, features a collection of landscape photographs from around the South West, including locations in Collie, Bridgetown, Bunbury, Dunsborough and Augusta.
Mr Marshall said the book combined two of his loves in life – photography and travelling through the South West.
”I was living in Sydney briefly and seeing a lot of new things and a girlfriend of mine at the time encouraged me to take up photography,” he said.
“I had a little instamatic camera and later on my father gave me a 35mm camera and so it kind of just went from there.”
Mr Marshall said the South West, with its diverse towns and areas, was a natural focus for the project.
“It’s something that I always wanted to do, particularly with the South West, because there was just so many different trips that I had done and I wanted to draw attention to those places.”
Mr Marshall said it was the second book he had published, after a similar photographic look at the landscapes of the Pilbara.
He said the book told its story through the visual impact of the photos and the accompanying captions.
“Most of the narrative text follows with the captions. Some of the stories are a little bit longer,” he said.
“There’s two sections on Collie. One is on the Seven Hills Road and landscape along the Coalfields highway and the other one focuses on the Wellington Dam when it was drained [in early 1988].”
He said the project had taken a long time to complete, with some photos included almost 40 years old.
“It probably took less time to assemble [the book], as opposed to the first book, but some of the photos date back to 1981,” he said.
Mr Marshall said he had started photographic landscapes in the 1970s after returning back to WA from the eastern states.
“Initially I was doing photographs of people on the street and human interest studies and ideas of social change,” he said.
“Then I had to do quite a lot of live photographs for Australian rock bands in Melbourne. That was in the late 1970’s with bands like Cold Chisel and John English.
“[After that] I came back to Perth and I wanted to find something uniquely visual about the Australian landscape.”
Mr Marshall said it was a great experience to self-publish the book and that he had a few ideas of what his next project would be.
For more information, contact mrlmarshall@optusnet.com.au
