If you live in Perth make sure you check out FotoFreo - Perth's largest (and I was informed the largest in the Southern Hemisphere) photographic festival.

I will let FotoFreo's website [link] do most of the talking, but as of the 5th of April, a huge contingent of international and local photographers' work has been incorporated into numerous galleries and displayed around Fremantle and Perth (and a few other suburbs) - free to view! Many photographic workshops and lectures have also been available made available. I'm sure many of you interested in photography are already aware of this, but if you aren't, check it out...

I was down there for TAFE today (we went down instead of having a lecture) initially to see the galleries of Edward Burtynsky and Paolo Pellegrin and here them give a floor talk on their work. Burtynsky's work is amazing.. so textural and 3d.. and more importantly eye-opening. He documents the impacts (both visual and environmental) of the mining trade in Western Australia - which are jaw-dropping to put it mildly. He gave an impassioned talk on them and hinted at where we may end up if we continue this extractive process without making provisions for a more ecologically friendly future. Everyone should check that gallery out. Pellegrin's work was also very good - from a more directly human angle, which dealt with the subject of the constant closeness to death which many people face in everyday life.

Following that, I checked out a few other exhibitions - most notably Natalie Blom's (xxqueenbxofxskemexx [link] ) exhibition at Soho Cafe on high street [link] Make sure to check that gallery out, her work is great.

After checking out some other galleries and being very impressed and inspired, I walked around Fremantle with my film camera and tried to document the ambience and atmosphere of Freo. Dunno how the photos will turn out, but I will put them in for cross-processing tomorrow and upload the results

Get down there