Darwin Daze - Baz Ledwidge

Into the thick of it

Baz Ledwidge has been photographing in Darwin and nearby terrain for over four decades, arriving here in 1974 after time spent overseas in London and Papua New Guinea. He arrived not long before Cyclone Tracy struck Darwin and was one of the first to photograph the city in its aftermath. Part of this, Baz explains, was because he happened to be living in downtown Darwin at that time.

Darwin was where Baz picked up his photography again having cut his teeth as a 17-year-old cadet at the Wagga Daily Advertiser in his hometown Wagga Wagga, in regional NSW. ‘There I was thrown into the thick of it’, Baz has said, ‘sent from football matches to murders, car accidents to street parades’.iIn Darwin Baz initially worked as a photographer for the Australian Information Services, a federal agency which promoted Australia’s image overseas, and which saw him cover a large area of the NT. He later took up a position as the photographer at Charles Darwin University (CDU, then Northern Territory University) which he held for 22 years before semi-retirement and freelance photography. Baz still continues to photograph CDU’s graduation ceremonies in Darwin and Alice Springs. He describes such work as military-like in its logistics and precision, the moving feast of portrait after portrait while trying to keep up the celebratory, congenial spirit of the occasion. It also says something about the enduring relationships of a photographic career.

Darwin Daze is Baz’s title for this exhibition. The initial title was Darwin Daysbut Baz thought Daze was more apt. Both words impart a sense of time. ‘Daze’ suggests a broader kind of passage, a sense almost of having lost track of time because so much has happened, been seen and photographed.

A lot has happened, is happening in Darwin Dazewhich comprises around 35 prints and over 100 screen-projected images which span from the early 1970s to present times. There’s a portrait of Lutz Frankenfield plying his prototype beer-can boat along Mindil Beach in 1974, of an enlightened-looking Queen Elizabeth II inside Darwin’s Anglican Christchurch Cathedral in 1977. There’s scenes of sailing and sport, ANZAC Day two-up, and the historic arrival of the railway to Darwin (2004).

Unlike the ‘football matches to murders’ brief of Baz’s newspaper cadetship, Darwin Dazemoves more along celebratory lines, a kind of ‘love letter’ to the city/region and its people which has sustained the photographer for so long. This selection does include a few football matches, like the photograph of a St Mary’s game in 1977, with coach Peter Atkinson instructing a huddle of players among which appears a young Aboriginal boy, also donning the jersey and earnestly taking in coach’s advice. Or Baz’s more recent photograph of a rugby match at Marrara. The ‘match’ here is more the two lithe young women sporting singlets advertising ‘The Vic’ and rather cheeky shorts. The closing of The Victoria Hotel late last year, one of the city’s oldest pubs, lends the photo some nostalgic value but otherwise it clearly and unashamedly celebrates the female form.

This particular photo was a bit of a sticking point. The process of final selection of images for the print component of the exhibition was one in which Baz presented his initial shortlist and sought advice from myself and the printer (Debbie Kroon) for the final cull. Some of the advice he followed and some he didn’t such as the inclusion of ‘The Vic’ photo. ‘Is it an interesting enough photo?’, I first thought to myself. ‘Does it present Baz in his best light?’ The motive behind the exhibition is partly one of commemorating Baz’s career in photography, to facilitate an appreciation of his work as art for a contemporary audience. ‘The Vic’ photo may be less ‘art’, less intrigue than other images by Baz but in this exhibition context its inclusion makes perfect sense, if only to underpin that Darwin Dazeis also richly autobiographical.

The photographs are broadly grouped around ‘Lifestyles’ and ‘Characters’. ‘Characters’ include Vivienne Paspaley, Cowboy Bill (represented by 2 photographs), Martin Jarvis, Phyllis, and Eddie Blitner. Most of these characters are no longer around and so evoke a Darwin of yesteryear, of a particular generation. Their portraits also ask us to consider what the enduring character of Darwin is: who embodies it, how is it visually expressed?

Baz also looms as something of a character in this show, not just because it’s ultimately his vision of Darwin – classic, diverse, joyful and humane – but also because of his own exploits which include co-founding the Darwin Rocksitters Club, represented here with an image at high tide in 1977. The ‘rocksitters’ stand, clinging to a flag pole which sometime later, Baz tells me, got fried in a lightning storm which caused the rock platform to shatter. Darwin ‘dazed’!

Maurice O’Riordan

Director, Northern Centre for Contemporary Art

i‘Baz Ledwidge’, in exhibition catalogue for PROOF: Photo Essays from the Top End, Northern Centre for Contemporary Art and Darwin Waterfront, May/June 2014.