| Exhibitions | Artist Information | |
| Floating Light Pictures | Philosophy | Style |
| Coast/Kaigan | Technique | Influences |
| Thatched Roof Heritage | Background | |
Transplanted from an inner city terrace house with a small but leafy garden and overflowing compost bins to an 11th floor apartment overlooking an ultra-modern metropolis veiled by almost permanent haze, my new outlook seems simultaneously sterile and grimy: manicured parks of equally spaced trees and sculptured hillocks where toy dogs in little dresses and dungarees frolic beside grey plumes spewing from industrial stacks, trucks fuming idly on roadsides while their drivers nap and cranes constructing further floors on concrete skeleton towers in a landscape long since divorced from any natural contours of the coast. This is not the old wabi sabi Japan I came to explore.
And yet, as dusk descends and lights start to float and dance, a certain ephemeral beauty begins to reveal itself through the camera of an ever curious explorer. In the semi-random traces of these floating lights I discover a different dimension of a modern metropolis and echoes of a past floating world of fleeting pleasures. My aim with this collection of images is to share some of the transitory traces of beauty that can be teased from the darkened metropolis using only a compact digital camera and a spirit of experimentation.
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| 2007-2008 | Currently experimenting with compact digital camera Sony Cybershot DSC-N2. Abstract images are created using long exposure times and camera movement after dark. Digital prints on Crispia paper made with Epson PM A970 printer straight from camera. |
| Up to 2006 | Exclusively used 35mm film camera (Pentax ME Super, P30T and K1000) mostly using f1.7 50mm standard lens. Have printed black and white and colour images from negatives myself for control over the final image. Also use colour slide film, with images printed commercially on metallic paper to mimic the luminous quality of the old Cibachrome prints. |
| 1961 | born Melbourne, Australia |
| 1982-84 | member, Sydney University Photographic Society |
| 1983 | entry in Sydney-Nagoya Sister City Photographic Exchange |
| November 2003 | highly commended in inaugural Sydney Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program photo competition �Japan Inside-Out� |
| 2004, 2005 | workshops in Black & White, Colour and Landscape, Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney; highly commended for three landscape images in 2005 Term 1 Student Show |
| July/August 2004 | solo exhibition Thatched Roof Heritage: Photographs of Three Villages in Japan, Chrissie Cotter Gallery, Sydney |
| January/February 2006 | solo exhibition Coast/Kaigan, Gallery Xposure, Sydney; endorsed as an official Australia-Japan Year of Exchange event |
| November 2006 | moved to Yokohama for two years | February 2008 | solo exhibition ukikoe floating light pictures, Ben’s Café, Takadanobaba, Tokyo | November 2008 | returned to live in Sydney, Australia |
Photographs by Leanne Mumford
GalleryXposure
Rozelle, Sydney, Australia
January-February 2006
| Retreat from Suburbia at Shomyoji (pdf) | "The reflection of the red bridge arch wavers in the ducks' wakes as they swim squabbling towards me. ..." This piece is about an old temple in Kanazawa-Bunko, a suburb of Yokohama. |
| Joy of Jizake (pdf) | "On a snowy Tuesday afternoon in Sakata the middle-aged shopkeeper near the Sankyo Soko, a row of old houses beside the Mogami River, seems glad of any customer as she offers tastings of some local Yamagata Prefecture sakes. ..." This piece is about tasting local sakes - Jizake - and some sake terms. |
| Back to School (pdf) | "A new aural challenge hit my ears before my brain could process the words I had just heard. ... " This piece is about experiencing culture shock going back to college to study Japanese. |
| Take a Hike. (pdf) | "While Yokohama is a very convenient city to live in, the landscape is predominantly artificial, with buildings more evident than trees in many areas. ..." This piece is about getting out of the city into natural surroundings and hiking in the hills near Kamakura and on the Miura Peninsula. |
| Travel Back in Time to Nihon Minka-En (pdf) | "It's a Saturday around noon and the village seems deserted. ..." This piece is about visiting an outdoor museum of old folk houses in Tama Ward, Kawasaki City. |
Leanne Mumford is a member of The Tokyo Writers Salon
Leanne uses her photographs, Japanese washi paper and other paper-based materials to make original and unique greeting cards and postcards.
Contact email: lemumford"at"yahoo.com.au
Last updated: 10th August, 2009
All images and words copyright Leanne Mumford 2008 & 2009
