Peter Dombrovskis at Blue Lake – David Tatnall

The National Library of Australia acquires two photographs of Peter Dombrovskis at Kosciuszko National Park.

The National Library of Australia holds the entire collection of photographs by the late Peter Dombrovskis. These 4×5 colour transparencies are kept in refrigerated storage but scans of the photographs can be seen on the library’s website.

Peter almost always photographed his landscapes on solo trips. The photograph, reproduced above here is of Blue Lake Creek one of the four glacial lakes in mainland Australia, and very special to me. In 1986 he made a series of photographs in Kosciuszko National Park, and by chance I was there too with my late brother-in-law, Colin Tyrer; both of us making photographs as well.

There are very few pictures of Peter in the field working with his camera, but Colin made two photographs that day – one of Peter working, and one of me and Peter with our cameras. The National Library of Australia has recently acquired both the photographs to add to their collection.

It’s always interesting watching how another photographer makes an image. Both Peter and I had cameras set up close to one another. We spontaneously interrupted our conversation when the light changed both rushing back to our cameras to fire the shutter. There is another photograph in the library’s collection that has always intrigued me. If you look very closely at the photograph made on the coast in Tasmania Macrocystis and Hormosira Seaweed you’ll see a reflection of Peter and his camera in the seaweed. We’ll never know if this was an intentional self-portrait or not, but I think it probably was.

This article was first published in On Landscape Magazine in April 2024.