Ten years ago I nearly lost my sight - a brief 'About Me'...

At Newcastle Ocean Baths © Paul Foley.  Fine Art Gallery

 'Today, an amazing picture can be swiped away in seconds. To stand before an impactful, well crafted print is to experience the soul of thoughtful photography.'

My first attraction to photography was through the pages of 1970’s surf magazines. Inspired, I saved for a Pentax and a cheap 400mm lens then began photographing my friends surfing. I was full of teenage ambition of seeing my pictures on a magazine’s page.

After a week of waiting, the Kodachromes would come back from processing. I would project the best on my bedroom wall, imagining them as magazine covers with mastheads and headlines.

Between the mid '70's and '80's there was some limited publishing success. But even more fun and adventure travelling to various surf locations around the world.

Travel opened my photographic soul - it encouraged me to better understand my craft. I discovered (and devoured) the images and teachings of Ansel Adams. Practical instruction came via many workshops conducted by contemporary masters of photography. I was also fortunate to receive some mentoring from iconic Australian photographer, David Moore.

This mix of 'on page' and in person tuition taught me to photograph with precise techniques and greater reflection. In time I would make photographs using only large and medium format cameras. 

Later on, I settled into a professional photography career in Newcastle, Australia. Commissioned by local, national and international clients I was a busy pro. All the while though, I made pictures for me. Everyone needs a hobby as a break from everyday work and for me that hobby was photography.

Ten years ago I almost permanently lost my sight after eye surgery. It took two years for my eyes to recover and then several more to come to terms with the associated depression. Even now I am somewhat limited by the amount of commissioned work I can comfortably undertake.

The recovery period gave me more time for my ‘hobby’. I used it to express how that smeared vision, in the months immediately after the surgery, filtered the world. Now, with eyesight repaired, I still find myself drawn to disguising scenes and details with blur and motion.

I make pictures to express how light and shadow shape my creativity. While I do photograph single experiences or light events, I am most attracted by the coast and the horizon for inspiration. 

I call my process ‘finding pictures’ and it may help explain my eclectic range of subjects. It grows from an inquisitive interest in the human condition as well as a passionate search for light.

I am also an avid user of Instagram - @lightmoods - @blurrytravels . It satisfies my impulsive creative urges and trains my eye to find pictures in everyday scenes.

You may first see my photographs electronically and that might be the only way you experience them. Which is as it is in 2016. My process, though, is only complete when it is before the viewer as a print - it is the essential finale.

Photography isn't real for me until I can feel it. It is the tactile confluence of light and shadow - when I am ’holding the pixels’.

The Rhythm of the Waves

Dark Shore, Shellharbour, Australia © Paul Foley (Click to Purchase)

"Although the rhythm of the waves beats a kind of time, it is not clock or calendar time. It has no urgency. It happens to be timeless time. I know that I am listening to a rhythm which has been just the same for millions of years, and it takes me out of a world of relentlessly ticking clocks. Clocks for some reason or other always seem to be marching, and, as with armies, marching is never to anything but doom. But in the motion of waves there is no marching rhythm. It harmonizes with our very breathing. It does not count our days. Its pulse is not in the stingy spirit of measuring, of marking out how much still remains. It is the breathing of eternity, like the God Brahma of Indian mythology inhaling and exhaling, manifesting and dissolving the worlds, forever. As a mere conception this might sound appallingly monotonous, until you come to listen to the breaking and washing of waves."
— Alan Wilson Watts

Alan Wilson Watts was a British philosopher, writer, speaker, who held both a master's degree in theology and a doctorate of divinity. Famous for his research on comparative religion, he was best known as an interpreter and popularizer of Asian philosophies for a Western audience.
http://www.alanwatts.com/

The Dancer, MoMA, NYC

I recently was able to contact dancer Lenio Kaklea and pass on a series of pictures I made of her during a visit to MoMA in NYC back in 2013.

I always enjoy my visits there but on this day it was even more memorable. As part of the Museum's Performance Program 20 dancers were performing spontaneously around MoMA. I found it amazing to be able to witness these wonderful artist in closeup as they moved past exhibits and around us gallery visitors.

Lenio is an amazing dancer - every graceful and powerful movement gave me many sculptural photographic moments in her short but energetic piece.

Lénio Kaklea, '20 Dancers for the XX Century' at MOMA, NYC, Oct 2013 © Paul Foley

The Performance Program is part of MoMA’s increased focus on the historical as well as the contemporary practice of performance-based art. The ongoing series brings documentation and reenactments of historic performances, thematic group exhibitions, solo presentations, and original performance works to various locations throughout the Museum.

20 Dancers for the XX Century (2012/2013) presents a living archive. Twenty performers from various generations perform, recall, appropriate, and transmit solo works of the last century that were originally conceived or performed by some of the most significant modernist and postmodernist artists, dancers, and choreographers. Each performer presents his or her own museum of sorts, wherein the body becomes the primary museological container and object. Accordingly, there is neither a stage nor a demarcation of performance space; rather, the performers circulate freely between the Museum’s Marron Atrium, the Museum galleries, and other public spaces.
Cast: Magali Caillet-Gajan, Ashley Chen, Jim Fletcher, Brennan Gerard, Trajal Harrell, Burr Johnson, Lénio Kaklea, Catherine Legrand, Morgan Lugo, Richard Move, Mani A. Mungai, Banu Ogan, Leiomy Prodigy, Christopher Roman, Shelley Senter, Valda Setterfield, Gus Solomons, John Sorensen-Jolink, Meg Stuart, and Adam Weinert
Source: MOMA Website
See more here.