MOVIE • 1991

Long Shadows

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“I was fascinated by the distance Australia has travelled in the past 50 years, and by how this evolving complexion continues to be indelibly, almost unconsciously, recorded by simple family and tourist images (today via video camera). History, place, time...and how we feel compelled to endlessly photograph one another. We’re all in a way little ham actors...a wave, a smile, doing a little dance...performing for the camera in front of landscapes and monuments. I worked with some old 16mm home-movie footage I’d been given, shot in the Blue Mountains [a favourite tourist destination and wilderness area close to Sydney]. Through optical printing and camerawork in the field I managed to combine the feel of then and now. [...] I used a prism in front of the lens, which chased the images (including some of me, photographing) ‘round and ‘round...mirroring the way history endlessly repeats itself.” (Paul Winkler)