This artwork blends four images captured at Lake Copeton near Inverell in northern New South Wales with a variety of lenses: the background texture of a bleached granite boulder; drowned trees in a bay, intentionally blurred by tilting the camera during a slow exposure at dawn; two photographs of a grey teal in flight.

For me, the work evokes the following:
•open and secluded spaces
•contrasting states: rock (solid); water (liquid); sky (gas)
•the idea of sanctuary for wildlife in the quiet backwater
•startled flight from seclusion to a distant place
•the resemblance of the vertically blurred trees to an audio sound wave graph—the alarm calls of the grey teal that fled the scene upon my arrival
•the rise and fall of the water level in an irrigation impoundment
•the timelessness of granite
•the silence of dead trees standing
•morning

METAPHORS
It occurs to me that this image, for some, may evoke metaphors for depression. The left three quarters are a metaphor for an emotionally dark place. Indistinct forms of trees could be our demons, or the peaks and troughs of biorhythms or emotional states. The edge of granite marks the boundary between those states and the brighter, optimistic side of life, the side to which the grey teal are heading. A pair. Partners. Strength in a bond. ®

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Fiona Brook: Delighted to have a Rob Smith original photographic print on the wall in our home. "Crossflight." Thank you so much Rob - we both love it.