Kids bring their take on the Black Summer recovery with the Sarsfield Snaps photography project.
Speakers:
Harry
Faith
Eliza
Harry
Tiana Felmingham
Michelle Perry
Photo courtesy of Anna Fuhrmeister, age 11, Sarsfield.
Theme music and occasional other contributions by Spoonbill: https://soundcloud.com/spoonbill
FULL TRANSCRIPT
TIANA:
Anybody want bubble wrap?
HENRY:
I want bubble wrap, I want the big piece. I’m having the big piece.
TIANA:
Rip a bit off if you want. Alright. Ok. Which way does that go? Jacob, Jacob. Jack.
HOST:
This is the much-delayed last episode of Three Towns. I’m Matthew Abud.
We’re back in Sarsfield once more, in the Community Recovery Hub
They’re opening the latest prints from Sarsfield Snaps.
That’s one of my favourite local projects after the Black Summer bushfires.
MICHELLE:
Kay.
HENRY:
Oh!
MICHELLE:
You like that one Henry?
TIANA:
Henry. Adrian!
HENRY:
Oh that is actually really good.
TIANA:
That is really good.
MICHELLE:
Not really good, it’s actually really good.
HOST:
Michelle Perry recorded this part. You can hear her asking Henry there.
For the Snaps, kids in Sarsfield took photos of what was happening around them in the days and months after the fires.
Several shots have been on display over the past year and more, around the local tennis courts.
Some of the kids talked me through their favourite shots.
MATTHEW:
Faith, do you want to show us your photo and talk about it?
FAITH:
So it’s a picture of the bricks outside our house and it’s got scorch marks from the fires and the moss that’s in between the bricks. I think I took it around the time when we first got back to the house. I guess it’s a bit of a combination because it shows marks from the fire but it’s also still got the moss and stuff from beforehand.
MATTHEW:
So it’s like, you have the damage but you have the re-growth, you can see the change happening.
FAITH:
Yeah. This is one of the ones that appeared in my school photo, I put in my school photo competition.
MATTHEW:
Eliza you’ve talked about it before, but do you want to describe this photo and how you took it and why you like it?
ELIZA:
Well I love it because I love fish.
HOST:
Eliza’s shot is of fish swimming in water.
ELIZA:
And I like how the shadow, it’s kind of a perfect photo because it’s just kind of swimming and cruising at the same time. But you’ve got to be quick otherwise if you’re not quick enough, you won’t get the photo right.
MATTHEW:
Winter swimming?
ELIZA:
Yes! Winter swimming.
MATTHEW:
I don’t think everyone could take this photo because I don’t think everyone would be brave enough to go swimming at Eagle Point in the winter.
ELIZA:
Yes, I guess so. Mum and dad were quite shocked that I did it. My brother isn’t, well he’s sort of into swimming but not so much like me because I love swimming, it’s my favourite thing to do.
HOST:
Of course, this is all from quite a while back – late last year.
I meant to wrap up this episode months ago.
But 2021 made that impossible on a personal front.
So it’s been over a year since I first heard about the Snaps.
That was at the dinners from the last episode, in the Sarsfield hall just after the fires.
TIANA:
So the idea is, we’ve got a whole heap of cameras here, some are more advanced cameras and some are some point and shoot cameras, so you guys I’m sure can manage the bigger cameras.
HOST:
That’s Tiana Felmingham, at one of the Sarsfield dinners when this idea got started.]
TIANA
And the idea is that you take them home, borrow them, for about a week or two weeks, whatever you can turn around in, and then take photos of your day. So the idea is that it’s Sarsfield Snaps for Sarsfield Kids. Anything at all that’s about your day. And then bring them back in and we’ll print them up for you, and you can also choose your favourite ones with the idea that we might be able to get some of them mounted, certainly here for the hall, but we might even be able to put them up in somewhere bigger one day.
HOST:
I asked Tiana back then, how this idea got started.
TIANA:
This idea came up really just from us talking at home, and we realised that there’s so much focus on adults after something that’s really stressful and for good reason, but a lot of the kids’ voices get lost in amongst it. And one of the things that was really important to me is one, that they were able to articulate their view of the world to the adults around them. And often kids can’t do that with words. So we wanted to make sure that they had an opportunity to share what they were thinking.
It’s one of those things that brews slowly, we want to be able to get it into the newsletters of all the different schools because Sarsfield doesn’t have a school, most of the kids are spread across at least six different primary schools and possibly three different colleges. So we want to be able to share that with the schools so that we’re capturing other kids. There’s a lot of families who have been displaced that have been displaced outside Sarsfield that are living in different locations now, and we want to be able to contact them as well.
HOST:
In a year of COVID, and long, slow recovery from the fires, the Snaps did their job.
In fact, it’s one activity that could keep going even in the middle of COVID restrictions.
They even produced a 2021 calendar from all the work.
With the numbers of photos they got, there are always more to show.
And from June twenty second – that’s this month – they’re holding an exhibition as part of Gippsland’s Winter Festival.
MATTHEW:
Henry. Let’s see your photo.
HENRY:
Mine’s a sort of green-y farm plain, with a tree stump that looks like a cubic version of a cow. And it’s got a blue sky with some burnt trees at the back.
MATTHEW:
And this is taken from the car window at high speed.
HENRY
Yes.
Why do you like it at high speed like this, why do you like the image that comes out?
HENRY:
It just gives it a little bit of a blur, which gives it like a, I don’t know how to say this, good look.
MATTHEW:
Eliza, what do you think about Jack’s photo here?
ELIZA:
I think it’s pretty cool because it’s like a fairy tale when darkness is coming from a wicked witch.
MATTHEW:
So this is like the sky, but there’s the dark clouds and everything like this?
ELIZA:
Yes. It’s really cool. I like it because it’s just like the witch has just said the curse over the land and it’s coming to dark, it’s turning into darkness, and the wicked witch loves it, darkness.
MATTHEW:
Sounds like you could write a story to this photo.
ELIZA:
I love writing stories!
MICHELLE:
What’s the best thing about taking the photos?
HOST:
That’s Michelle again, asking Harry the question.
HARRY:
Um, getting the aim perfect, like the adjustments instead of just having your hands like this, and then the thing’s down there. Just getting it perfect.
MICHELLE:
Ok. That’s pretty cool. Thanks for that. Well, I reckon that’s a pretty cool photo, so – awesome.
HOST:
That’s all from Three Towns. I’m Matthew Abud.
Thanks for listening.
Thanks also to Spoonbill for the music, and to Daniel Bowden for sound engineering support.