David Field
Artists biography
David bought his first camera using his pocket money when he was eight, and has never stopped taking photos ever since. He works primarily in environmental portraiture and documentary photography, focusing on the role of imagery in story-telling. He fell into a long-term documentary project on heritage telecommunications equipment while working for Telstra, and that saw him documenting a number of exchanges across the Inner West Council area.
Current work and inspiration
While it's easy to overlook them, for many years telephone exchanges have been the heart of local communities. In a literal sense, to save on the cost of copper wires the Post Master General's office would install exchanges in a location that represented the centre of the local population. In a broader sense, the telephone exchange was a hub through which communications would travel when people wanted to call friends, talk to relatives, place an order, or ring about a new job. In the early days of telephony in Australia, the equipment used to connect people was very mechanical, and required genuine craftsmanship to manufacture, operate and maintain. In now-obsolete equipment left behind in telephone exchanges you can still see echoes of the history of the communities served by the exchange, and echoes of the communities of craftsmen who kept the equipment running so that the rest of us could be connected.
David’s photography of the telecommunications system inside the Balmain Exchange, has inspired the new public artwork in development for the Telstra Plaza, corner of Darling and Montague Streets, Balmain, for more information on the project please visit this page.
David is currently working on a portrait project called "Laws of Creativity", exploring the way creativity is interwoven into everyday life for renewal and sustainability, and continuing trying to find ways to use imagery to tell human stories.
Website and social media links
website: www.profundum.com.au/thatexchangeproject
www.lawsofcreativity.net/