Young and old are invited to try their hand at one of the oldest photograph making processes during Jindera’s Forgotten Trades Festival on 23 February. Picture: Supplied.
There’s something about the art of making old photographs that captivates Rachel Pringle.
In this digital age of instant gratification at every click, the “sit and wait” aspect of the cyanotype printmaking process is quite meditative, the Albury artist and photographer says.
Rachel will share her interest in one of the oldest photographic processes during a hands-on workshop at Jindera Pioneer Museum’s Forgotten Trades Festival on Sunday 23 February.
“Hopefully the sun is with us,” she laughs, describing the camera-less technique that involves placing objects on paper coated in light-sensitive solutions and exposing it to UV light before rinsing off to reveal vibrant blue images.
The Forgotten Trades Festival – which celebrates gone, but not forgotten forms of craftmanship – will include about 25 artisans sharing their skills in the traditional trades of yesteryear.
From butter making to blacksmithing, spinning and weaving, rope making, woodwork and wood turning to felting and folk herbalism, the day is about highlighting the practical skills of early settlement, says museum president Margie Wehner.
“We want people to appreciate the efforts our early pioneers had to make just to get by day to day, and contemplate how difficult life often was for people back then,” she says.
“Many people have no idea how long it takes to do or make many items that were used in this era.
“It was a slower form of living than we experience today …”
The biannual festival, now in its third year, has proven popular with people of all ages and in 2024 attracted more than 1700 visitors.
Bryan Winnett will again be showcasing the art of stone walling at this year’s Forgotten Trades Festival at Jindera, where he will produce a sundial for the museum. Picture: Supplied.
On Sunday, 13-year-old Charlie Dunn, of Culcairn, will demonstrate what it takes to hand-shear sheep the old way, with blade shears.
The St Paul’s College Walla student is gaining a reputation for being a young gun on the shearing circuit and first picked up a handpiece at the age of five.
Initially shearing a few sheep on his family farm on the stand alongside his dad, Charlie reached his first record of shearing 66 sheep by the age of nine.
Meanwhile third-generation watchmaker Ian Smith has been restoring antique timepieces for 22 years in a small shop at Tallangatta, still using many of the tools and methods employed by craftsmen of the 1800s.
At the festival, Ian will reveal just what makes these amazing mechanisms tick, with demonstrations of the antique timepieces alongside a display of old tools and watches.
Family affair … Sylvie Brown, 12, has found her creative side sharing the art of cyanotype photography with her sister Eve and mother Rachel Pringle. Photo: Supplied.
For Rachel and her two daughters, Eve Brown, 17, and Sylvie Brown, 12, creating cyanotype photographs together “has become a family thing”.
They enjoy sharing their work with friends, family and, more recently, the local Girl Guides group but Jindera will be their first festival together.
Having trained at the former Canberra School of Arts (with a major in painting and a sub-major in photography), Rachel says she is “very much into experimental art”.
It was Albury-Wodonga Camera Club’s Paul Temple who introduced Rachel to cyanotype photography in 2019, but she was first inspired by her architect father who used huge ‘blue’ prints in his work.
What she loves most about this type of photography is that you get to control the whole process.
“It’s hands-on, it gets you out in the sun and in nature collecting interesting objects,” Rachel says.
“To see the reaction on people’s faces as the print transforms in colour, the waiting for it to develop, then to see it change again … I think it tends to exceed expectations!”
During the festival, the museum’s Tim Fischer Machinery Shed will have engines turning and pumping while the old forge in the agricultural shed will be blazing and blacksmiths on hand to demonstrate the grit it took to craft things out of iron over hot coals. All other exhibits will also be open.
Jindera’s Forgotten Trades Festival is on Sunday, 23 February, 10 am to 4 pm with food and refreshments available. Tickets can be purchased through trybooking or at the museum door on the day.
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