Simply & The Quiet Land – Peter Dombrovskis

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By Tim Parkin | May 3, 2011

Tim Parkin

Amateur Photographer who plays with big cameras and film when in between digital photographs.

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Simply, Peter Dombrovskis

The only book readily available from Peter Dombrovskis is ‘Simply’ which although reaching the end of it’s print run, can still be bought from a couple of places in Tasmania (see Peter’s website for details) - I bought mine from Book City in Australia.

The book is a gem and many of the pictures look like they could have been taken yesterday. A few pictures in the book stand out for me though, in particular the Myrtle Tree and the long shot of Bathurst Harbour, both seen below.

Myrtle Tree

Bathurst Harbour

The short entries by various botanists (at least I presume they are botanists - there are no descriptions of who these people are) seem shoehorned into the book in order to demonstrate Peter’s environmental credentials. Not that they aren’t interesting but seem decoupled from the book as if an afterthought. The preface and essays (by Patricia Sabine, director the Wilderness Gallery, Tasmania and Gael Newton senior curator of photography at the National Gallery of Australia) provide a quick background on Australian photography of the era and of Peter’s work in particular.

The Quiet Land, Peter Dombrovskis

The Quiet Land is Peter’s first publication and this shows in some of the photographs, however many of the pictures demonstrate the unique view that he was developing, particular personal favourites are Four Peaks from Thwaites Plateua, Forest Floor and Weindorfer’s Bath Hut (shown below).

Four Peaks from Thwaites Plateau

Forest Floor

Weisendorfer's Bath Hut

The book combines poetry with the images, a very 70’s / 80’s thing to do and something I can’t really assess as I’m not really the poetry sort. I do like a particular quote from Peter’s introductory text ..

“I took photographs for the simple pleasure of recording objects and places that were important to me, and because the discipline of photography increased my awareness of Tasmania’s beauty and made me appreciate more clearly the value of the wilderness.”

Well put..

"The Quiet Land" can be bought through second hand book brokers, Abebooks or Alibris for about £50 for a fairly good copy (although you will probably have to buy internationally - postage is cheap though). I shall hopefully be getting hold of a couple more of Peter’s books at some point in the future and will add reviews of them as and when..