“These two photographs were taken during a burn-off in a cane field in the wet tropics at the base of Queensland’s tallest mountain, Bartle Frere. As it is a place I visit frequently, I have constantly felt a desire to translate and understand the landscape. Yet the visitor can experience little of it at close quarters. The depth and density of the forest defies the two-dimensional restrictions of photography, and words also fail to capture the beauty and extent of it. The natural rainforest is pressed hard against human activity, and the barrier, in some way, is represented by the conflation of smoke and mist. The images convey the physical reality of an ephemeral phenomenon, but the impulse to frame the scene is just as transitory. Knowing the time, place, and context of a photograph will inform what we know, but there is necessarily always “more” behind that image. As Alain de Botton has explained, “the more can’t be fixed and is soon forgotten.””
