Holding the pixels.

Written By Paul Foley

“A photograph isn’t real until you can touch it.” This is a quote by...umm... me 🙄

This picture is important to me for a number of reasons. Firstly, it was difficult to get to the place where the waves washed through without washing me away (and still make an interesting picture). Secondly, choosing a composition when using a very wide lens pointed down is always fiddly. Even more so when trying to show detail in the distance. Being off by a few millimetres can completely ruin a picture.

So technically and physically I am pleased with my efforts.

More importantly, for me, the significance of this image lies in how ‘wet’ it looks when printed on a thick, cotton rag paper. I’m proud to say that, at least on this occasion, I did my job well. And I chose the best equipment and techniques to match my creativity, skill and experience. Which is why I am sharing these pics.

Bumping up the contrast and saturation is great to boost the love on Instagram or 500px. And printing images on metallic paper and mounting behind high gloss acrylic also adds a lot of bling.

To me, though, printing on real paper is when an art lover can properly hold the pixels. It is the next best thing since capturing on film and printing directly from a negative. And not so easy to thumb swipe away. Find the original here

Photographed using a Canon 1Ds Mk3, Canon 17mm Tilt/Shift Lens, Raw processing through Lightroom, Printed with a Canon Pixma Pro 10s Inkjet on Hahnemuele Museum Etching paper. 

Paul Foley

I am an Australian fine-art photographer based in Newcastle, New South Wales, and have been making photographs for more than fifty years, including 35 years as a professional commercial photographer.

I think of much of my personal work simply as finding pictures—looking for relationships between light and shadow, lines and shapes, landscape and humanity. My photographs range across landscape, the sea, abstraction and the human form, with recurring interests in time, place and memory.

I remain a generalist photographer. Some ideas develop into collections that I return to over many years; others appear unexpectedly and result in a single photograph.

My work has been recognised in Australian and international photography awards and exhibited in Australia and overseas. Including as a finalist in the Galah Regional Photography Prize (2025) and National Photographic Portrait Prize (2011), selected to hang in several 'Mosman 2088' exhibitions and included in group exhibitions in Glasgow, Tokyo, Newcastle and China. I have also had individual and collaborative exhibitions in Sydney and Newcastle.

I live in Newcastle, Australia.

https://www.paulfoley.com.au
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