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The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that over one billion young people globally are at risk of hearing loss due to sound exposure in recreational settings. The risk of permanent hearing injury due to unsafe listening is both avoidable and costly.
Read MorePhotographers dedicated to stand-alone cameras, digital and photo-chemical film, operate on another branchline of technology with an ancestry connected more closely to the original invention of photography and its greater reliance on technique.
Read MoreThis blog post incorporates my submission to the Harbour Trust 9 May 2023 in response to its Draft Master Plan for Sydney Harbour’s Middle Head precinct but with less protest and a more useful analysis of a government agency which relies overly on external consultants and insists on putting marketing and public relations cinitiatives ahead of strategic planning and the development of actual services.
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‘Not Predictably But Inevitably’ Echo artist Agatha Gothe-Snape, Wemyss Lane, Surry Hills, Sydney, NSW. Photo: Michael Mangold 2017.
Plato says we are uneducated unless we know how to read and swim. If you are reading this there is much you already know about the English language, regardless of whether or not English is your first language and whether or not you can swim.
Read MoreThe Greater Sydney Parklands Trust Bill 2021 is designed to concentrate decision making power over the future use of the public parklands of greater Sydney solely in the hands of the NSW Government and to marginalise community consultation and alternative and / or dissenting public opinions and community visions in the process.
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ABOVE: Defending Middle Head A Short History published by Edmund Alexander Books 2021.
Brigadier Kevin O’Brien brings to his new book Defending Middle Head A Short History many bonuses for readers; the historic perspective of his research, his expertise in artillery and eye for strategy, his vision as a Sydney Harbour Federation Trust board member, and the importance he places on heritage for everyone’s benefit.
Read MoreThe truth of the Luna Park Ghost Train fire (Sydney, 9 June 1979) and justice for the six children and the father of two of them who were murdered and their families, are now closer thanks to the forensic investigative reporting of ABC TV’s Caro Meldrum-Hanna, witnesses, and the legacy of the late Martin Sharp.
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ABOVE: Heritage of Australia's natural landscapes on Harbour Trust walks relies on keeping a tight rein on the conservation of heritage buildings. PHOTO: Michael Mangold
Heritage is ingrained in faces, places, buildings, objects, artefacts, ceremonies, rituals and rites. Heritage opens pathways to the past, enlivening and enriching our culture, our learning, our thinking, our views and attitudes. Heritage is important to our self-image, national identity, confidence, security and legacy as individuals and communities.
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ABOVE: Advertising onsite at Marsden Park North appeals to aspirations to promote sales while ignoring the risks to buyers of homes built on flood plains.
The upside of the COVID-19 pandemic for me has been the opportunity to revisit sacred sites of my childhood. These sites used to be protected by the greenbelt Governor Macquarie created around Sydney in the early days of the colony.
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ABOVE: Tell Me Why: The Story of My Life and My Music by Archie Roach, his story and music are absorbing and enriching. Photo by Adrian Cook.
My earliest experience of Aboriginal culture was the word “Yarramundi” spoken by my parents the night before we went there for a picnic.
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ABOVE: Wyrd Sisters 2017 by Ox King inspired by Camperdown Park and the life in the area, celebrating and symbolising the weirdness of Newtown.
We’re human, we grasp and hold onto all sorts of things; from abstract concepts to moral values, food, drink and technologies, talking, texting and emailing our way through life, adapting and evolving.
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ABOVE: Wild waratah grasping the rain and displaying its natural beauty in all its glory at Pierces Pass in World Heritage Blue Mountains National Park.
Bushfire skirmishes along the east coast of Australia burst into a conflagration, inciting mass demonstrations against Climate Change.
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ABOVE: The inimitable Melinda Vassallo, long time Newtown resident, Culture Scouts tour guide and author of ‘Perfect Match – Street Art of the Inner West’.
Saturday 11 January 2020, was one of those Sydney days, full of life for me, southerly breeze, slightly overcast blue sky, merciful respite from the smoke engulfing the Sydney Basin from Australia’s mega bushfires – making breathing and smiling the essential and simple pleasures they should always be.
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ABOVE: Bilpin’s fresh mountain air atmosphere, fruit orchards, roadside stalls and national park forests, devastated and defaced by bushfires.
“We’ve been waiting for days for the fire to impact us. Today is probably the day. Hoses everywhere, generator ready, paddocks mowed etc.”
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Above: Getting people to pose for me was as easy as making a bbq out of whatever was lying around.
The magic of photography begins for me with the way the camera focuses my attention so intensely that time seems to stands still. My favourite subjects of my earliest photographs were my family, neighbours, cars, toys and pets.
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