Outdoor Photography

C

hristian Fletcher is one of Australia’s

leading contemporary landscape

photographers, and a man who likes

narratives. He likes to weave stories

into his enormous images of an enormous

country, and as we settle to discuss how he

made the three-decade transition from surfer

stereotype to successful gallery owner, he

reminisces on the story of a photography

gallery curator he once met early on in his

career. ‘He said to me, “Christian, you’ve got

some beautiful photos here. But you’ve got to

show me something I haven’t seen before”. And

then he asked me why I didn’t go out there and

photograph something that can’t be seen.’

To the born-and-bred, no-nonsense Australian,

this was ‘the most ridiculous thing I’d ever

heard. I’m a photographer,’ he explains, before

adding: ‘if I can’t see it, I can’t shoot it.’ Then,

one day, as he was driving around a lonely

mining town on the Western Australian coast,

he had his ‘Road to Damascus’ moment.

‘I was in this place called Karratha, which

is just dire. The architecture is horrible. It’s

stinking hot and everything is bleached by the

sun. I kept thinking about this idea of showing

something that can’t be seen. Then it hit me.

The thing that can’t be seen is the story and the

emotions that go with it. If you can get all that,

the photo becomes about what’s in the photo,

rather than the photo itself. That was when

I started to think about what photos mean,

rather than just showing beauty in a way that

becomes boring after a few viewings. What if

you had a photograph that you could keep

coming back to, that holds the attention?’

Above Sand dunes at Esp erance, West Aust ralia.

Opposite Sheep in the Stirling Ranges, West Aust ralia.

February 2018 Outdoor Photography 17

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