February 24th, 2020Meet the locals: photographer Mike Rutherford

MIKE Rutherford, a Trentham local, studied photography at RMIT and worked as a commercial/advertising photographer in Melbourne, Sydney, Singapore and London until the late 1990s, when the rise of digital photography (everyone became a photographer) made analogue photography redundant in advertising. He says it’s also a fairly ageist profession. Mike chatted with Donna Kelly.

Donna: When did you get involved in photography?

Mike: I have never abandoned personal photography but two trips to India last year inspired me to not only take new images but to use manipulation in photography in ways that create art rather than a realistic image.

Donna: What do you get from your art?

Mike: I love the entire process – from taking the image to manipulating, printing (often multiple prints ’til I get it right) and writing a narrative that accompanies the images. I particularly love the feedback – both good and bad – that I get from people who view the images, whether it’s at the exhibition at the Cosmo Hotel or on Facebook, as it means the story I am showing is reaching people. I am particularly influenced by the works of photographers Sebastiao Salgado and John Claridge, both of whom use exquisite black and white photography to show humanity in all its forms, and classic photographers like Irving Penn and Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Donna: What do you hope others find in it?

Mike: I hope that the viewer is drawn into each picture, seeking the story behind it. Whether it’s railway tracks that lead the viewer into looking into the forest in the background or a stack of life-size fibreglass animals in a yard. I also want to use photography to show the impact of climate change in rural Australia. Even though the Central Highlands doesn’t suffer the drought that is elsewhere in Australia and, thankfully, we have not had a major bushfire for some years, living in the bush can be tough. My images are often of abandoned farmhouses, empty swimming pools, unused playgrounds. Small icons and graphic shapes, often neglected, offer unique visual inspiration.

 Donna: What are Still Scapes?

 Mike: The name is a combination of still life and landscape. There is something of both in these images. Still Scapes shows images from India and regional Victoria that are dark, moody, sometimes confronting and more than the usual digitally enhanced landscape photos.

Donna: What is your Central Highlands story?

Mike: I bought a property in Trentham in the mid 80s and have been repairing it now seriously for three years. I want to the make the cottage at least liveable, it was very neglected – built in the 1860s.

Donna: And where can we see your work?

Mike: The Cosmopolitan Hotel until March 31, mikerutherfordphoto,         www.mikerutherfordphotographer.com and saatchiart.com/mikerutherford

“Still Scapes shows images from India and regional Victoria that are dark, moody, sometimes confronting and more than the usual digitally enhanced landscape photos.”