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Girt By Sea Photography by Tony Hewitt and Denis Glennon AO

Photography: Tony Hewitt and Denis Glennon AO (supplied)

Girt By Sea Photography by Tony Hewitt and Dennis Glennon AO

Canon has just launched Girt by Sea, a breathtaking exhibition by Tony Hewitt and Denis Glennon AO and this is your chance to experience this unique showcase comprising a stunning collection of 100 large-format aerial images of our beautiful coastline. The doors open free of charge to the public from Saturday 16 June until Wednesday 27 June, 10am–6pm daily at Paddington Town Hall.

Tony Hewitt's dream has always been to create a project on the scale of Girt by Sea and thanks to Canon Australia for their support and sponsorship the dream became a reality.

We all Have Dreams.

How many Australians, who were born here or are new Australians, actually know the words of our Australian Anthem? Since his school days singing Advance Australia Fair in assembly, Tony Hewitt was fascinated by the curious expression ‘girt by sea’. Years later as an acclaimed photographer, ‘girt by sea’ became the metaphor for an epic Australian adventure: to circumnavigate Australia’s coastline by air in one 31-day trip, capture it in stunning detail and bring new meaning to those three words. Tony shared his dream with close friend and accomplished photographer Denis Glennon AO, and the pair decided to make the dream a reality.

I am so honoured to share these beautiful images with Sydney Chic readers. As a "learner" photographer with my Canon EOS 1300D, I've captured some amazing photos for my blogs, but one day I hope to graduate and take some seriously good photos like these.

The Journey of Discovery

Commencing and finishing at Jandakot Airport, Western Australia, the voyage took an anticlockwise flight path allowing both photographers to shoot simultaneously through front and rear portside windows of the Cessna 210 light aircraft, which generally tracked just off the coast.

“This was never a documentary trip; it was a voyage of discovery akin to the explorers of old,” says Denis Glennon. “There’s lots of planning and preparation with a trip of this scale but ultimately it’s instinct and curiosity that led to us taking the images in our collection. We had an expectation of what we might see courtesy of Google Earth, but what we actually saw when we got there blew us out of our seats every time.”

The Challenges

Weather! Always a challenge is our Mother Nature. Tony and Denis chose April as the optimal time for this journey after extensive research of historical weather patterns, especially for the more remote southern and northern regions and it turns out that was a good plan.

“We had to complete the trip in 31 days so planning had to account for the journey and photography time and we had to provide the pilots with the way points ahead of each leg. We could delay take-off or get out early but we had to stick to time,” says Tony Hewitt. “Planning can get you so far but we had to constantly account for variables such as tides, weather conditions and just the unexpected marvels that we would find when we were faced with a location for the first time.”

The Collection

“The collection expresses what Girt by Sea means to us – it’s the emotional response to what we saw a point in time captured in beautiful, large-format images,” says Denis Glennon. “It’s the result of our daily decision to focus on what we actually find, not on what we expect to find – that’s the spirit of exploration!”

“I hope people share the same emotional response of ‘Wow – look at that!’ that we did when we encountered these places,” says Tony Hewitt. “It doesn’t really matter where it is. What is so striking is the texture, colour, and shape of our coastline. We have in our minds a hard line dividing land from sea, but it’s actually a much more fluid transition.

You be the judge, personally, I am 'wowed'.