Roll Five – Laurel Hill and the Sugar Pine Forest
I love travel.. but I especially love exploring the Australian landscape. In May/June 2015 I had the opportunity to shoot a wedding in the Dandenong Ranges just outside of Melbourne. We decided to go off the beaten track a few times, making our way to Melbourne via Canberra, Cooma and through Orbost (with a stop over in Traralgon to say with our friends James & Kym). After shooting the wedding and a visit to The Great Ocean Road (which was Roll One) we headed back up the Hume, but for one reason only.. so that I could stay in Batlow and visit Laurel Hill and the Sugar Pine Forest.
This is a beautiful part of the world, with a high elevation and diverse country side.. I stumbled across the location in my road trip searching. I would love to shoot here in every season, now that I have ticked off winter and know the location well I cant wait to visit again. Being winter I woke on a very cold and gloomy morning and made my way up from Bilpin to Laurel Hill on a very icey road.. it felt like a very long drive. It had snowed over night but not enough to break through the tall canopy overhead. I spent a few hours wandering through the rows of trees, capturing the light as it changed and the fog as it rolled through. Tricky conditions for shooting film, as there was a very small amount of light, but it yielded some lovely colours and contrast. I feel as though it captured the mood perfectly, but perhaps not as cold as I really was (I am very thankful I put on my thermals that morning!)
Camera – Makina 67
Film – Kodak Portra 160 (pushed One Stop)
Scanner – Fuji Frontier SP3000
