Len Metcalf

Len Metcalf

Len is a photography educator and art teacher. He is the director of Len's School located in Sydney, Australia, which offers a wide range of online courses from year-long photography masterclasses to shorter composition and drawing courses. Len’s School offers innovative small group workshops and tours for dedicated amateur photographers who wish to grow.

Len publishes Len’s Journal which celebrates creative photography quarterly and is only available via subscription.

Len exhibits his photography regularly and is widely published. His intimate portraits of people and nature show a unique and very personal vision of the beauty of the world though his photographic art.

lensschool.com

Michéla Griffith

In 2012 I paused by my local river and everything changed. I’ve moved away from what many expect photographs to be; my images reflect the curiosity that water has inspired in my practice. The river has been my conduit: it has sharpened my vision, given me permission to experiment and continues to introduce me to new ways of seeing. Website

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In this issue, we have a rich and lengthy dialogue with Australian artist and educator Len Metcalf. Len has written for On Landscape before and gave an inspiring presentation at the Meeting of Minds Conference in 2016. Len’s images are distinctive – always square, always sepia toned. He has a love of wildness, trees and flowers; he is a passionate advocate for the environment; and likes nothing better than a quality print – and paper. To Len, photography on the wall or in a book or journal that stays with you is art, and this is an ethos that he shares with his students.

Would you like to start by telling readers a little about yourself – where you grew up, what your early interests were, and what has stayed with you from that time?

My formative years were in Leura, where I was born, which is now part of The Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area. This one million hectare Wilderness area was at my doorstep. My first overnight bushwalk was from the front door of our family home and out into the wilderness with my father. We walked for a day and camped overnight. In the era when our tent was made with waxed japara, the sleeping bag didn't have zips, and an old black billy was our only accessory. We cut bedding out of grass and cooked on an open fire. This first walk romanticised bushwalking (hiking) for me, and it has remained as my most important outdoor activity and mental health strategy for my whole life, which is only surpassed by art making, mostly with my camera.