Photography

Photographs from Newcastle and further afield: flats and backyards, double exposures on film, the beach, the city, creatures up close, and land and water.

Photographs by Maggie Hall. See also Painting.

Dytp/chi

The artist as a small child in a striped top, sitting barefoot against a brick wall

The artist's long shadow on the pavement, walking ahead of her, with a black shoe, black-and-white fur and red and navy fabric at the bottom of the frame

Newcastle, in black and white

Streets, flats and backyards around Merewether and the harbour.

A broken paling fence with the park and sea beyond

Mattresses and clothes left on the grass outside a block of flats

A burnt-out car parked beside a block of flats

Dixon Park and the sea framed by a dark curtained window

An old caravan with a hand-painted For Sale sign

A backyard junk pile under a spray-painted KEEP OUT sign

A three-storey block of flats with a trampoline on the lawn

A man bent over tyres beside an old caravan

Surfboards leaning against a wall beside an old book

A woman sitting on an unmade bed with her face in her hands, a small dog beside her

A woman in silhouette with hands on hips in a dark kitchen, lit by a lamp behind her — Shown in *The Beach*, Head On Photo Festival 2017

Double exposures

Black and white film, two frames on one: studios, darkrooms, galleries and washrooms.

A dressmaker's dummy and a draped floral cloth through a studio window

Two dressmaker's dummies, one marked with drawn lines, among easels

Stacked frames and a building's grid of windows, split by a diagonal of light

Racks of canvases and wire screens leading to a bright window

A toilet overlaid with a speckled terrazzo pattern

A woman with tattooed arms working at a light table below pinned photographs

Figures hanging an exhibition, framed prints leaning on the walls, layered with a second frame

An empty art school studio with easels, a wall fan and tall wooden doors

Two people arranging paintings on a table in a gallery, seen through glass

The beach

Mornings at the water's edge.

A man in a hat and jacket with a small dog on a lead, facing the sea

The same man watching a surfer run past with his board

City lines

Architecture, light, the tram, and Canberra.

A Newcastle tram coming down the tracks between buildings

A lone figure in a long gallery, seen through glass and balustrades

Parliament House, Canberra, seen between flagpoles under heavy cloud

A white staircase over a polished parquet floor

Central Australia

Red ranges, river beds and wildflowers: the country behind Meridian States.

A shallow river over stones below a red gorge wall and a ghost gum

Folded layers of ochre rock under a deep blue sky

A ghost gum and a native pine among red boulders

Pale water-worn rocks in a dry sandy creek bed

Pale, fluffy wildflowers with the ranges behind

A river and gums below a red-rocked hill, purple flowers in front

A dead tree on a ridge against a blue sky

A small whitewashed mortuary, built 1936, with a cross above the door

Land, water and colour

Mirrored water reflections forming a symmetrical pattern

A duck swimming through rippled, silver water

Red earth and young crops under storm clouds

Creatures, up close

Insects, birds and a python, seen at their own scale.

A hoverfly facing the camera from the tip of a parsley leaf

A dragonfly with blue-green eyes and lace wings on a yellow stem

Close-up of a python's head and patterned scales

A tawny frogmouth perched on a stop sign at night, its shadow thrown onto the wall of a block of flats

Stone, signal and sky

Cemetery statues, old broadcast equipment and the Blue Mountains.

Telephone handsets on a vintage switchboard

An ancient stone dolmen under a heavy sky

White on dark

A chess game turned to negative, a pelvis bone, and the skeleton of a ray.

Two men playing chess on a checked floor, the photograph inverted to a negative

A pale animal pelvis bone laid on dark cloth — University of Newcastle, 2017

An X-ray print of a spiny butterfly ray, its fine skeleton white on black — X-ray of a spiny butterfly ray, *Gymnura altavela*, photographed on display at the museum

Masks, saints and old rooms

Carnival figures, a music box, a mask and a statue, and a clock at the foot of the stairs.

A carnival figure in a painted costume hung with bells, outside Hotel Bären

A smiling carnival mask framed by curls and ribbons

A statue of the Virgin in prayer before a painting of a house

Tiny dancing figures inside a mirrored music box

A grandfather clock beside an arch and a worn staircase

Newcastle Writers Festival, 2024

Street details from the Covid years, reworked in colour and shown in the festival’s art exhibition.

Seen through a perforated green screen: a blurred laneway with a red figure and a blue sail

A long printed banner of a Venice canal hanging against a laneway gate

The word BOOSTER above a fire booster cabinet behind black bars, in shifted colour

Rock walls, Central Australia

Weathered red and ochre cliff faces, a lichen-green pool and a red path through spinifex.

A red cliff face rising from still, lime-green water

Close view of a weathered orange and grey rock wall

A cracked red-orange cliff face in strong light

A small green plant growing from a crack in a red rock wall

A narrow fissure running down an orange rock face

Smooth, rippled gold and brown stone, like poured metal

A red dirt path winding through green spinifex

Head On entries

Entered in the Head On Photo Festival and shown in the exhibition The Beach: Kitty and a mouse, a rock face, a station platform, and light on water.

A fishing rod planted in wet sand at dusk, the sky reflected in the shallows

A long, blurred exposure of pale light moving through dark

A white cat leaning over a bath to watch a small mouse beside a soap dish

A white cat and a small mouse face to face on the edge of a bath

Hollows and caves worn into a grey limestone cliff

A footbridge and the Wyee station sign under a violet evening sky

Black and silver reflections broken up on moving water

Printed for exhibition

Mountains, a high lake and a boulder shore printed in black and white, with a studio chair and a full moon.

A rocky peak under heavy cloud, in black and white

A dead white tree among dark scrub below a mountain range

A dark mountain lake seen from a ridge, in black and white

A shore of rounded boulders under a low grey sky

A single black chair against a pale studio backdrop

A full moon, bright and pale against a black sky

Small things, in black and white

Statues, insects, cattle, a skull, a tape recorder, a playing card and Kitty's eyes, close up.

A marble cherub with hands pressed together in prayer

A single closed flower on a slim stem beside a curling leaf

A white theatrical mask with a draped headdress on a wall

A primate skull with long teeth, in dramatic light

A Sony reel-to-reel tape recorder seen from above

Two model sailing ships on a patterned floor

Waves breaking over an ocean baths wall under summer cloud

An ibis in flight, silhouetted against a pale sky

A hoverfly on the edge of a frosted leaf

A plant tendril curling into a tight spiral against black

A worn, torn ace of spades on a dark ground

Close-up of a white cat's dark eye and fur

A white cat's pale green eye, very close

A winged figurine with arms raised, silhouetted

Flowers

Garden flowers in colour, close up.

A magenta pigface flower with a gold centre

A white flower with dark gold spots at the base of its petals

A violet morning glory flower open to the light

Fluffy white blossom with an orange centre on a bare branch

Glen Helen, Central Australia

The gorge, its waterhole and the country around it: rock, bark, water, wildflowers and the animals that live there.

A sheer red sandstone cliff rising from the Glen Helen waterhole

A red gorge cutting through a rocky green hillside

A bearded dragon peering through dry grass

A bush of red desert flowers on a sandy bank

Ghost gum bark streaked red, cream and dark brown

Folded layers of orange rock over a dark overhang

Pale cliffs reflected in still brown water

Rings of ripples spreading across a waterhole

A broken edge of red rock against a deep blue sky

A distant blue mountain range above red scrubland

Bare, burnt branches crossing in front of pale foliage

Rounded orange rock rising into a clear blue sky

A wide waterhole reflecting the sky, ringed with reeds and trees

Small white wildflowers growing at the foot of a rock wall

A gorge wall dropping into water beside a bank of green reeds

Orange and white rock outcrops among green scrub

A rounded red rock dome against a blue sky

A goanna walking across a slope of rounded stones

Canberra: memorials and Parliament

The Australian War Memorial, Parliament House and the markets: bronze, glass, stone and sky.

A bronze memorial of horsemen against a pale sky, in black and white

Tall metal letters spelling Vietnam above a stone wall, in black and white

The gold and red mosaic dome of the Hall of Memory, seen from below

Stained glass figures in the Hall of Memory windows, in black and white

A green bronze relief of a bird with outstretched wings

Red poppies tucked beside names on the Roll of Honour

The eternal flame burning in its bronze ring, coins scattered in the pool

A black and white bird standing on bark-strewn ground

An old Remington typewriter, in black and white

A heap of garlic bulbs at a market stall

Rows of glass bottles half full of amber liquid

Parliament House and its flagpole under grey cloud, in black and white

A long marble corridor with a patterned black and white floor

The Parliament House flagpole seen from directly below

Clouds over the hills around Canberra, in black and white

Rows of pruned, twisted grapevines in winter

Close view of jewel-coloured stained glass in a dark frame

The columns and bronze screens of the National Library, in black and white

Cradle Mountain, on film

Black and white negatives from Tasmania's high country, scanned from film.

Cradle Mountain's jagged peaks above a valley, in black and white

A walking track winding across rocky moorland under a pale sky

Cradle Mountain rising beyond low heath and boulders

The peaks of Cradle Mountain over a rocky slope

A mountain lake catching the light between dark hills

Steep slopes falling to a lake below the Cradle Mountain peaks

Do Not Suppose

From the series Do Not Suppose, 2014.

A sea of cloud seen from above, in black and white

A small weatherboard shed between two old trees

A white bench and folding table beside a wire fence on an old court

A freight train passing grain silos under heavy cloud

Mirrored prints

Close photographs mirrored into symmetrical patterns and printed on canvas in black wooden frames, 2015.

A circuit board mirrored into a symmetrical gold and blue pattern

Capacitors and components mirrored into a face-like pattern

Rows of circuit components mirrored in red, gold and green

Weathered blue and rust tones mirrored into a totem-like form

Red printed numerals and circles mirrored across a red ground

Gold and brown textures mirrored into a symmetrical, organic pattern

Dark tree trunks mirrored into a pale central column

Red and green paint mirrored into a pattern like stained glass

Granite and lichen

Granite boulders splashed with orange lichen, and a still pool at dusk, 2016.

Granite boulders covered in bright orange lichen

A rounded granite boulder with orange lichen against a pale sky

Rock spires on a dark ridge under a cloudy evening sky

A still pool reflecting the evening sky on a stony plateau

End of the Line

From End of the Line, 2016: skeletons in hot colour, an empty stairwell, a street at night and a railway line.

Skeletons walking in silhouette against hot yellow

A skeleton seated at a window, in black against orange and red

A crowd of skeletons in silhouette in a sunlit room

An empty white stairwell and a polished floor, in black and white

An empty shopping street at night under yellow light

Railway lines running into the distance under overhead wires

Two prints, 2017

MI16: The Lost Sphinx, the secret service building on the Thames, and a tunnel printed as a cyanotype.

MI16: The Lost Sphinx. The stepped secret service building on the Thames under storm cloud, in black and white

A cyanotype print of a long tunnel with rails running into darkness

Histories of the Future

Photographs made for Histories of the Future, poetry and photographs with Martin Edmond (Walleah Press, 2015).

Toy sailing boat and its reflection on rippled water

A round table and vase by tall windows, Katoomba

Close crop of an old map with Queanbeyan and Tharwa

Numbered blocks on an old Canberra plan, Reserved for Special Purposes

Two swimmers in dark water scattered with light

The sun burning through rippled cloud above a power pole

A bird with wings raised against a cloudy sky

A cormorant on a dead branch in a lake, Jenolan

A raven's head close up against pale rock

A river winding through an old engraved map

Dark streaks of sand drawn down a beach slope

A heron on a leaning branch above the surf

Three birds perched on feathery branches

A lone tree in fog beneath a bright cloud

Clouds framed by the dark mouth of a cave

Tracks and contours on a blue map seen close

Sun glittering on the sea from a dark shore

Glass and light, 2016

Made during photography studies at TAFE: windows, glass bricks and light falling across a room.

Arched and square windows glowing white in a dark hall

An arched window and a pressed-metal ceiling above a white wall

Blue sky seen through streaked, misted glass

A sash window in a brick wall, an empty room reflected in its panes

Rainbow light refracted through glass in a dark space

A black leather armchair in a bar of sunlight

Glass bricks in a grid, catching coloured light

Self-portraits

Mirror selfie in a steel lift on floor six, striped dress, red glasses in hand

The same mirror selfie on floor one, a few seconds later

The photographer's own boots and their long shadow on a concrete floor