Wayne Bradbury was born and raised in Victoria rural and New South Wales. He developed a great appreciation for the land and its many moods. For him, photography is a relatively new discovery. He began taking landscape photographs less than 10 years ago. Bradbury is a self taught photographer. He depends on magazines, books and the internet. He’s a quick learner and within a short time after beginning to take photographs, he outgrew his first point-and-shoot digital camera and moved to more sophisticated digital SLRs. Bradbury soon realized that the Australian landscape was particularly great for panoramic photography, so his next logical progression was to a 6x17 cm panoramic film camera, which is now his preferred tool. He says that the discipline that comes with shooting onto large film causes the photographer to slow down and carefully consider every shot.
Bradbury can wait for hours for the right lighting conditions to come along, and if they fail to come, he’ll leave without taking a shot, preferring to return another day. He does this to ensure that he gets only high quality photos. “When things go right it can be exhilarating and dare I say addictive,” he says. Bradbury adds that it is also a thrill viewing the resulting film transparencies for the first time on the lightbox. He has won several first prizes in photography and art shows around Victoria over the past 2 years. He has also staged a couple of regional exhibitions, and has had one of his photos published on the cover of Australian Photography Magazine.
