b. 1973 Naarm (Melbourne).
Daniel is a photographic artist who operates under the moniker Mossy Rock Photography, which represents his love of living green things. He lives on unceded Dja Dja Wurrung country within the Wombat State Forest which keeps him connected to complex ecologies and sources of inspiration. During the course of his studies, he has delved into environmental themes and the concept of place through his documentary art practice, as well as meaningful collaborations with scientists and artists, producing a documentary book, stop motion animation, and fine art documentation photographs. As a diverse photographer who enjoys collaboration, Daniel’s focus on how we connect to our environments and the places we inhabit has also informed his interest in environmental portraiture and editorial photography. To date these works have featured within the National Herbarium of Victoria, Lightscape for Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, CS Square Gallery Windows, Hyphen Gallery in Wodonga and online for Landcare and Melbourne Water, and featured in Gertrude Street Projection Festival. An exhibition is planned for images created during an internship with the US Consulate in Naarm. This collaboration with the consulate, cultural envoys Native Pride Productions and fellow photographer Stavroula-Efthimia Lampropoulou captured a week long cultural exchange between First Nations peoples and local audiences.
Daniel’s cornerstone work for his BA Photography, I Don’t Mind Waiting: decomposing landscape is about Deep Listening and Place. As a descendent of colonial settlers working and living on Stolen Land, Daniel has taken an approach to landscape photography that attempts to unlearn and usurp the colonial gaze of the camera. The culmination of spending time with Forest, River, and Waterhole over a four-month period, the work seeks to empathise with the Dja Dja Wurrung Country (landscape) on which it was created whilst acknowledging the construct and materiality of photography and the artist’s own ancestral links to the current state of our precious ecosystems.
I Don’t Mind Waiting: decomposing landscape Installation
Installation detail
US Consulate / Native Pride Productions
