Ara Photographer Captures Land, Sea And International Recognition

The violence and drama of where land meets water has attracted John Maillard, Ara Institute of Canterbury’s Programme Leader- Photography, for many years. His ethereal, moody photography series My Land Our Land and Sea has now been recognised by the 2021 International Photography Awards as one of the top 100 Landscape series out of nearly 14,000 overall submissions.

"The sea is always waiting for me in a way, it is asking for me to join it," writes Maillard in the series’ tagline. By using 10-second exposures, Maillard creates a sense of movement in the nine photographs, with sea mist that hovers over coastal rocks, clouds that seem to shift, and colours that swirl in hypnotic lines.

Maillard was in Birdlings Flat nine years ago when he first began trying to catch what seemed to him to represent the consciousness of the land and sea.

"It’s such a violent place that you can’t even go for a swim," he explains. "That’s where I started trying to photograph the light at the cusp between the water and land."

"The drama, the emotion, the history of it all. Eighty percent of the world lives around the sea. The story of the sea is the story of humankind," he says.

Maillard is not new to photography awards, with previous mentions in the International Photography Awards in both 2017 and 2018. One reviewer described Maillard’s landscape photos as a "silent dialogue that encouraged the viewer to participate," evoking their strong emotions.

"Brightness and darkness are powerful visual qualities but, apart from having one meaning, both become a blank canvas upon which the viewer is invited to paint their thoughts," writes a reviewer from the international photography organisation, Lens Culture.

Taking award-winning photos conjures deeper, subconscious ideas for Maillard. He strives to capture what the camera sees, not what he sees.

"With the human eye only picking up 3% of the electromagnetic spectrum, cameras see much more than we do," says Maillard. "I’m not just capturing light, I’m sort of capturing a soul. I make a 10-second movie that you can see in one photograph."

Extraordinarily, when Maillard is taking a photo that he knows is right he experiences synaesthesia, a perceptual phenomenon that merges the senses, enabling some people to experience music as shapes, to see a particular word, or taste a flavour on their palate.

For Maillard, he hears music when he knows the shot is good. "It’s hard to describe the sound I hear," says Maillard, "but it’s a bit like space music."

The photographs in My Land, Our Land and Sea were taken throughout the South Island, in diverse landscapes such as Godley Head, Dunedin, and Nape Nape beach, one of Canterbury’s most secluded beaches.

Still Maillard says he strives to "get away from formalised approach to my artwork" and is increasingly experimenting with random number generation to break out of predetermined decisions and develop his photography in more arbitrary locations.

My Land Our Land and Sea can be viewed at Lens Culture, 500px.com, 1x.com and some are available via Getty Images and all Maillard's photos can be viewed through his online gallery, Waihora Gallery.

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