Looking Out, Looking In–Shooting the Great Ocean Road: Anita Beaney Artist Talk

Hear from CCP Photo Fair exhibiting artist Anita Beaney as she discusses the inspiration behind her serene Great Ocean Road landscapes. Based in Jan Juc, Anita has an intimate knowledge of the Great Ocean Road, and her insight into the best shooting locations and light conditions has resulted in images devoid of human intervention. While the exhibited works look out to the vast ocean, hear how Anita aims for her audiences to also look inward by sharing with them a sense of calm she draws from the landscape.

About the Artist
Anita is a freelance commercial photographer with a parallel arts practice. Based in Jan Juc, on The Great Ocean Road in Victoria, she works in portraiture, fashion, still life and landscape.
Having attained a BA in Art History from the University of Melbourne and a BA in Commercial Photography from RMIT, Anita began by assisting professional photographers before starting her own successful business, which has seen her shoot for clients including Australia Post, Australian OK, Australian Women’s Weekly, The Cotton On Group, Craft Victoria, Delicious Magazine, Harpers Bazaar, The Age (Good Weekend, Melbourne Magazine and Sunday Life), The City of Greater Geelong, Marie Clare, Monument, Photofile, Rip Curl, Qantas Magazine, and Who Weekly.

Twice short-listed for the National Photographic Portrait Prize, Anita’s practice is grounded in traditional analogue processes, and through her work she seeks out the complexity of the human form and the simplicity of the natural one.
Her images of the Great Ocean Road, looking out to the vast ocean, powerfully capture the serenity of the location, inviting audiences to also look inward for a similar feeling of stillness. Anita explains, “I am looking to find peace and inspiration by being in the natural environment, and hope to convey the calm I feel through my subject matter in my images.” Inspiration is found in the work of artists such as Mark Rothko and Ansel Adams, while her treatment of both the infinite and disappearing horizon evoke Hiroshi Sugimoto’s famed seascapes.

Employing only natural light in her shots, Anita photographs with a medium format Mamiya twin lens c330 camera with 120 roll film. The negatives are scanned, and the images then printed on to watercolour paper. Analogue photographic techniques are employed to obtain detail and quality and then realised in a painterly manner though the size of the print and the quality of the paper.