Grahame Sydney and his wife Heidi live in the shadow of Mount Saint Bathans in the heart of Central Otago. Photo HM

Grahame Sydney is best known for his photo-realistic paintings, especially of the Central Otago region where he lives and works. Such is the popularity of his work that his paintings are sold to a private waiting list and many have never been seen publicly, though reproduced art prints of his work have sold in their thousands. Sydney’s latest art book, ‘The Art of Grahame Sydney’, scooped the pool at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards 2000, winning the Montana Medal, the top non-fiction prize, the Readers’ Choice Award and the Illustrative Arts category.

Lesser known is Sydney’s ability as a photographer and cinematographer. His book ‘White Silence’, photographs from his visits to Antarctica in November 2003 and October 2006, was launched at the Antarctic Centre in Christchurch, October this year.

Born in Dunedin in 1948, Sydney attended Kings High School and the University of Otago, graduating BA (English and Geography). Following Secondary Teachers’ College, Christchurch, he taught at Cromwell District High School before travelling to the UK and Europe in 1973-74, then returning to Dunedin to commence a full-time art career. “At Kings I was already a keen watercolour painter with some years of private tutoring and art classes behind me, and an associate member of the Otago Art Society, but the school camera club and its inspirational teacher Reg Graham provided a creative outlet for a few of us in a school otherwise devoid of art. Guided by the charismatic Reg, we began to consider some of the rudiments of composition, cropping and awareness of the world inside the frame.” Sydney continued his interest in photography at home with an enlarger set up in his parent’s kitchen and later during his time in London. “A period that I lost heart in painting,” he would spend weekends on photo expeditions with his Asahi Pentax Spotmatic. “I have boxes of prints from these eras,” says Sydney.

Sydney paintings are very recognisable. “The paintings aren’t done to say much about what they’re looking at, they’re done to say things about me,” he explains. “What I find hard getting through to people is that although the paintings’ subject matter is landscape, they are fabrications in a great many ways. They are like this because of the sort of person I am. Paintings, like first novels, are always primarily autobiographical. They’re not so much a sense of the place but a sense of about me. A painting is a one-shot only, everything packed into one compressed, single, carefully considered offering.” Sydney puts his painter’s eye to the camera and admits that it is much more challenging to produce photographs that can be recognised as his. Talking about ‘White Silence’ Sydney said, “With the technical stuff being taken care of by the gear, everyone can take great photos in Antarctica but mine have to be different, distinctively my own”. In the excellent, well researched introduction to ‘White Silence’, Sydney writes about the beginnings of his fascination with Antarctica and about the three major Antarctic artists whose work he believes towers over all others: artist Edward Wilson and photographers Herbert Ponting and Frank Hurley.

Sydney shoots in RAW but his pictures are not manipulated apart for exposure compensation. “I don’t like photo-manipulation, it looks like a new art form. I’m a traditionalist though I am entranced by movie post-production possibilities”. As a professional in the visual world he says it is natural to be aware of what others are doing. “I have always loved movies and wanted to be a movie maker. I’ve watched films analytically and am aware of what goes on in making films.” He has formed a film company called Hinterland Productions.

Following ‘White Silence’ Sydney is working with Penguin Group NZ Ltd to complete two more books in the next two years, each of them with a predominant photographic content. The next is provisionally titled ‘Finding El Dorado: the Story of the Old Dunstan Road’ and is the book to accompany his documentary film on the landscape revealed en route to the Central Otago Goldfields, which remains much the same today as it was back in the 1860s. The third book, tentatively titled ‘Grahame Sydney’s Central Otago’ is due to be released in late 2010 and will be a collection of Grahame’s best photographs of his beloved Central Otago, accumulated over many years.

‘White Silence’ was shot on Canon EOS 350D and EOS 400D cameras. Canon NZ has now partnered with Sydney to sponsor equipment.

As he completes his book and film projects he will use the latest camera equipment supplied by Canon. Rochelle Mora, Canon NZ’s photographic product manager, is thrilled to have someone like Grahame Sydney showcase the abilities of Canon’s cameras. “I know people will be blown away by Grahame’s ability to capture the incredible beauty of this unique country on camera as well as he would have on canvas.” For his film projects Sydney will use the professional XLH1 High Definition Digital Video Camera and an HV20 High Definition Digital Camcorder, a compact model. For his still photography Canon has equipped him with an EOS 1DS Mark II and an EOS 5D with a range of lenses.

Sydney believes, “ … that it is much more challenging for today’s photographer to create a distinctive, identifiable manner or style than it was when photography was an uncommon art, more professional – less democratic – than it is today.” He says that, “Digital and computer intervention have forced photography out of the chemically tainted air of the darkroom into the fresh glaring daylight of everyman normality, and the old, hard-won skills are seldom any longer applicable. Fewer decisions are now made deliberately and the human hand – and heart – has a much-reduced presence in the process: the computer does the work, so there is a far smaller opportunity for that unique, necessary temperament to be displayed. It is harder, in other words, to be a fine, distinctive photographer these days.”

In 2003 Grahame Sydney was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to painting.

Antarctica & Central Otago Pix: photos Grahame Sydney

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