Ivory Palm Crown
Australia

20×20″ prints are $1,500
30×30″ prints are $3,000

In the spring of 2003 Ruth and I took (a rare) vacation to Australia with our good friends Patrick and Brenda Dean. We traveled to Cairns in the far northeast, a rain forest area. We spent two weeks there, found the people to be outgoing and kind and the food excellent. Among other activities, Ruth and Brenda surprised Patrick and me one morning with a private hot air ballon ride at dawn. We also did extensive snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef.

This image was made early one morning in a small park in Cairns. It’s the top of an Ivory Palm where I saw the luminous glow in the tree and dramatic shapes and expressive forms. It was made with my Hasselblad 205TCC camera and my 150mm Cfi lens on Velvia 50 film. The image is remarkably sharp and filled with subtle details in the branches. I used the camera’s built in spot meter and Zone System metering and could tell that the backlit palm fronds would be very bright and give an abstract halo around the palm crown.

In 2004 Hasselblad selected me to be a “Hasselblad Master” for that year. As part of that process they selected this image to feature in their yearly calendar.

They also requested a 40×40” Cibachrome print for a traveling exhibition which culminated in a show on October 1st, 2004 at Hasselblad’s world headquarters in Gothenburg, Sweden. That print is now part of their permanent collection.