Brooke Holm: Up!
- Words by
- Georgina Reid
- Images by
- Brooke Holm
Brooke Holm has a penchant for aerial photography. One day, when feeling a little uninspired, she impulsively booked a hot air balloon ride over the Yarra Valley in Victoria to photograph the landscape. The resulting images have a kind of fairytale quality; they’re soft, ethereal and beautiful. Through the lens of Brooke’s camera the often harsh Australian landscape has been transformed into a dreamy green wonderland.
The hand of man, less obvious when immersed in the landscape, becomes clear when viewed from above. Patterns carved by us impose themselves on the earth. The earth as the fabric, humans as the design. Brooke’s images capture the nature of this relationship in a gentle, romantic way.
Usually when looking for inspiration Brooke heads overseas to immerse herself in foreign landscapes. This time, however, she ended up a few hours from home, seeing a familiar place in a new way. Perspective is a wonderful thing.
There were no preconceived notions of how the photographs would work – landscape photography is not something controllable. The shapes, patterns and light dictated the direction of the images. For Brooke, the images are very much about how she felt being up in the air. She says,
I was free and peaceful. To me, these images portray that feeling.
To me, the photographs illustrate somehow the essential nature of landscapes. Nothing is static. All is changing, always. The light, time of day and weather play such an important part in the way a particular space is viewed and experienced. As Brooke suggests, if she returned and photographed the same place in the afternoon sun, the shots would have a completely different feeling. She says,
This is the reason why nature and landscapes are so incredible. They are versatile and unpredictable and I feel this perfectly compliments my own nature.