water

PHOTOS AND WORDS BY DEAN WHITING, NSW BASED MEDIA STRINGER

SUPPORTED BY ASTRID VOLZKE AS PART OF THE RURAL ROOM MEDIA STRINGER MENTOR PROGRAM

I have always had a fascination with water. From an early age i loved swimming in dams, camping, fishing and I understood how important it is to everything in nature. This connection grew as I grew older and explored what this great country had to offer. From our mighty rivers and dams to nature’s beauty in waterfalls, wetlands and the healing sounds and feel of saltwater lapping at my feet on the beach.

I got my first real camera at 40 and my love affair with water started all over again. for a few years i captured it in many forms until a life changing high speed head-on car accident near my home in Bathurst ended life as I knew it.

Two years into my recovery I picked up my camera as a tool for my sanity to momentarily escape from the pain and trauma by losing myself in photography. I started to appreciate my backyard in different ways. It was my sanctuary for the bulk of my recovery. I soon started to look deeper within nature’s beauty and at how water was so unique despite it always having the same molecular structure.

From the explosive closeup of a gentle raindrop hitting a puddle to the patterns it made as it sprayed out of the sprinkler or glistened in the light as it shot from the irrigation system. I found it fascinating as the artistic quality of water in different visual executions as captured by the lens is boundless.

Now I’m back travelling and enjoying the outside world. I find every opportunity to capture the power, ability and ferocity of water close up or from a different perspective. Photographing all water’s forms from waterfalls, waves, current flow and its ability to transform from a gentle shower of rain to hail or snow, its capacity to freeze everything in its path or make its own track through anything that stands in its way.