My name is Hamish Macdonald, I live and work (as a photographer) in Auckland. My personal work I suppose is essentially land and waterscape, but I consider it to be inconsequential that my pictures are a kind of document of a particular place. For that matter, I most often deliberately avoid photographing places which are ordinarily identifiable, however they may well be passed through by many people every day. For myself, many of my pictures have a strong association with music, songs or musicians / bands. I don't place too great a significance on this as a direction in my work; the connection between the image and the music can be sometimes tenuous and/or frivolous. They can emerge coincidentally at any stage of the photographic process but are nonetheless connected and equal. If asked to identify for a viewer some aspect of commonality or theme in my photographs I would hope to rely on my work as being evocative on a modest plane; in other words, triggering glimmers of memory, emotion ... music without recourse to explanation. I draw upon Romanticist artists such as Turner and Caspar David Friedrich as influences for their fascination with light effects and interplay with land and water, as well as their ability to imbue emotional tenor through their work. I especially enjoy the printmaking process of photography as well as framing my own pictures to complete the actual work. I tend to print large (32 by 48cm), warm-toned silver gelatin prints with a particularly heavy, grainy etched quality. Hamish Macdonald © 1997