Cooper+Spowart

Victoria Cooper and Doug Spowart are visual artists with an extensive practice as individuals and in collaboration. Both have completed individual PhD studies in photography, photobooks and artists’ books. Cooper and Spowart have been finalists in many photographic art awards and been the recipients of major prizes.

They have also judged photography, artists book and photobook awards, and have lectured nationally and in New Zealand. Their work including prints, artists’ books and photobooks has been acquired by regional and state galleries and also by the prominent art book collections of State Libraries, the National Library of Australia and the British Library. In social media they contribute to the Instagram accounts @wotwesaw (Victoria) @woteyesaw (Doug) and their practice commentary blog www.wotwedid.com. They are the founders of the Centre for Regional Arts Practice, The Cyanotype in Australia and New Zealand and the Antipodean Photobook (also Blogs and Facebook groups).

Eloise Maree

Eloise Maree is an artist and arts worker privileged to be living and working on and with Gundungurra and Wiradjuri land (Blue Mountains and Bathurst, New South Wales).

Eloise is a photographic artist utilising wet plate photographic processes. Eloise is interested in the relationships between people and place, in the history, and historical processes, of photography and in ‘creative histories’. Eloise’s camera-original wet plate photographs are both historical (hand sensitised using a silver nitrate solution, for example) and contemporary (shot using modern lenses, for example, and or lighting). This locates Eloise’s photographic art in the past as well as the present, and this colocation enables Eloise’s revisionings of histories and archives.

Eloise is experienced by way of Craig Tuffin as well as by way of Ellie Young of Gold Street Studios, a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Honours) (Sydney College of the Arts, the University of Sydney) and a Master of Museum Studies (the University of Sydney).

Eloise has most recently exhibited in Group 7 (inspired by Dorrit Black’s Group 9) at Day Gallery, Blackheath (June, 2022), and in Lumiere: Mount Victoria’s Festival of the Moving Image at Mount Vic Flicks, Rhomboid Studio and Performance Space and the Mount Victoria Manor (April – May, 2022).

Len Metcalf

Len’s journey towards photographic education began long ago, with the gift of his first camera as a young boy in the Blue Mountains, and his first teaching experience in a local Scout troupe at fifteen years old.  After graduating from High School, Len took a job as an outdoor educator in Kangaroo Valley to support himself through a Visual Arts degree, majoring in Photography. 

This was the beginning of a lifelong quest to combine his passions for adventure, education and photography.While studying Fine Art, Len had the opportunity to learn from fine teachers such as George Schwartz, Eardly Lancaster Julie Brown-Rrap and Lynn Roberts Goodwin at the City Art Institute (now Faculty of Fine Arts at NSW University).

He graduated with straight distinctions and received the coveted award for ‘Most Outstanding Advanced Colour Photographer’.  Turning down two corporate photography sponsorship offers, Len instead pursued a career in education and outdoor adventure.  Photography became his unbridled passion and his escape from work.During his 30 year career in the education sector Len worked with numerous schools and businesses as an experiential educator, facilitating learning outcomes through experiences in the outdoors.

In the tertiary education sector Len worked at the University of Technology, Sydney in the Faculty of Adult Education as course coordinator and lecturer in the Bachelor of Teaching program.  Later, he took on a role in the TAFE system as a vocational trainer designing, developing, coordinating and running some of the best industry courses in the world for over twenty years.

After 30 years as a facilitator, educator and trainer, Len was ready to pursue a new direction. He completed a Graduate Diploma in Art Education at Sydney University and a Masters Degree in Adult Education at the University of Technology, Sydney.

In 2000 Len founded Len's School.  Since then he has been teaching, mentoring and guiding photographers in some of the most spectacular landscapes in Australia, from arid deserts and windswept coasts to his backyard in the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area.