Steve Barker has been taking photographs for as long as he can remember, first as a child growing up in the Southern Alps in New Zealand, and later bushwalking in the steep ranges of the east coast of NZ’s North Island.

As most young New Zealanders did in the 1960s, he arrived in Sydney on his way to London. However, work intervened and he didn’t get past New South Wales, where he was a newspaper photographer for a time.

He came to Tasmania to work with ABC TV news in 1970, intending to stay two years, but instead made his home here.

For many years he concentrated on black and white film photography, capturing images and processing them in his own darkroom. He was drawn to the poetic nature of black and white which reduce the complexities of colour, light and shape to a few essential elements.

For the past ten years he has found new expressions of shape and form and colour through the freedom of digital photography. Believing that less is more, he aims for images that offer stillness and tranquillity.

In this Portfolio, Steve Barker collected images from across Tasmania, always looking for the authenticity found in nature and the sense of calm it offers.