Photographer

Zac McDougall

Finalist in

Upper Primary Category

Written Statement

I wanted to explore the different textures of the natural world. Another word for texture is ‘appearance’. In my images I wanted to show how what appears to be one type of surface, is actually another – like an illusion, so the person viewing the image is left to question and think about what the image really is. All three photos in this series were taken using a Cannon EOS5D Mark II on a 40mm lens.

The first image, ‘Mud or Rock’, was taken on a shutter speed of 1/125 sec, with an aperture of f/2.8. This picture was taken in colour and then I applied a sepia filter to it when editing to give the appearance of a hardened mud, with the darker lines representing cracks in the earth. The actual image is of sandstone with water and sand between the edges and different rust-like shading from where it had weathered.

The second image, ‘Tree Knot or Not’, was taken on a shutter speed 1/100 sec, with an aperture of f/4.5. For this image I zoomed into a circular section of a rock to create what looks like a knot in a tree. The textures in the rock, such as its cracks and the sand and the angle of the image, moving from rough to blurred-out smoothness, give the appearance of the bark of the tree.

The last image, ‘Painting or Photo’, was taken on a shutter speed 1/125 sec, with an aperture of f/2.8. To create this image I zoomed into a photo I took of water running over rocks. The light in the image gives the appearance of it being a painting. The reality is it is the movement of the water over the rocks. The water at times giving the texture of air or bubbles and floating cloud.