Moving pictures Bob Brown has touched many Australians with his politics. Now he is reaching another audience with his photography. Lauren Lynch went along to the opening night of his exhibition at Span Gallery in Flinders Lane. Last Thursday saw the opening of Senator Bob Brown's photo exhibition at the Span Gallery in Flinders Lane. It was a wonderful evening with moving speeches from Bob and Victorian Greens lead Senate candidate Richard Di Natale. The collection is a personal and passionate study of the private wilderness that is 'Bob Brown's Tasmania'.

This collection began in the 1960s and grew after Bob's love affair with Tasmania bloomed in 1972, when he relocated there as a young doctor.

To say that this exhibition has been politically motivated would undermine the moving and eerie works he has brought together to impart his love of Tasmania's natural beauty and to call attention to a much loved corner of the earth and its native species, many of which are now under threat.

His most haunting images are those taken of the Styx River's Valley of the Giants - a huge sprawling forest of giant trees more than 100 metres high and up to 500 years old. One shot is taken looking down over the treetops, which are partially submerged in mist, and seems to drone and wind slowly through the branches. Sadly, this mystical, untouched landscape is under threat of being logged and Brown states that he 'cannot rest until this vandalism stops'.

One of his most popular works has been 'Banksia Birds on a bough', a quirky image of what looks like two little birds resting on a branch together, slightly leaning into each other. This image seems to encapsulate Brown's sense of imagination and humour, for which he is well known. In fact, at his first exhibition in Hobart, one man made the comment that he considered Brown's photographs to be better than his policies, which Bob took with characteristic grace and good humour.

At heart, this is an exhibition fundamentally based on one man's infatuation with nature and his fight for its preservation. It spells out his admiration for 'the world that doesn't have a vote'.

All funds raised from the exhibition will go towards the 2007 election campaign.


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