John Austin Photography

Formation and purpose of QEDvideo

QEDvideo is a scion of QED, Quinninup Environmental Documentation.  The pun is intentional.

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The Anthropocene Extinction Event

Life as we know it is on the precipice of disaster.  Polar melting, desertification, drought, flooding and starvation have become global norms.

However in Western Australia we continue to live the consumerist fantasy of everlasting food, wealth and safety.

A result of our fantasy is that the south west of Western Australia, one of the most biodiverse hotspots on the planet, is under the greatest human threat it has ever faced.

Never have we had so much to communicate to so many people in such a short time.

If humanity does somehow survive, these documents will serve as a record of what was lost and an accusation against venture capitalists.

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Photo to Video

The extension into video from photography is because short videos have become the lingua franca of the early Twenty First Century.

While adopting video, we have to look at the problems of the medium in order to use it effectively.

Although coming from the same technological roots, even sharing the same lenses, photography and video are vastly different media.

Photographs can be viewed at a pace chosen by the viewer.  Photographs invite contemplation and discussion.  Even when sequenced in an exhibition or book, the viewing  and time taken is chosen by the viewer.  This slow and silent viewing encourages consideration and engagement.  By comparison video has a fixed pace and the dialogue is external to the viewer.  This places great responsibility on the producers of video to respect the sensibilities of the intended audience, in terms of stylistic presentation, if the viewer is to stay to the end of a video.

Now that short videos are the common medium and that we have environmental information to share, video is what we are embracing.

Adopting the principle of “think globally, act locally”, we are documenting the environmental threats within our local area; the Quinninup Community, the southern forests, agricultural areas, but mainly the Unicup wetlands.

Despite the noise and pace of video, in the long term photography is the more powerful medium.

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Unicup

Reading, research and exploring the land, water and life of the south west region shows the whole region must be considered as a unified ecosystem that has to be understood and protected as a whole from continued logging, fire and now mining.

The threat to Unicup from mining is worse than previous wetland clearing, bluegum plantation and farming.

There is an argument that the minerals beneath the south west region are needed for new technologies to combat climate change.  This is a lie.

The planned south west mining is for non-essential lifestyle minerals, mainly silica, but later copper and associated metals.  Used for such eco-lies as solar panels and electric cars.  The truth is the mining and processing of the minerals needed is too great a cost for Earth to bare and their mining is promoted for profit for a very few people and to the detriment of everything and everyone else.

Therefore the precautionary principle must be invoked and thorough research undertaken before any mining project is allowed.

We need more people to help generate media, mainly researchers and voice over readers.  If you can join please contact us.  If you are working in other regions, contact us so we can cooperate and share research and media.