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Bruce Cowells' career in imaging began in 1971 after obtaining qualifications in photography from the Queensland College of Art, in Brisbane, now part of Griffith University. His career in photography and film continued for forty-five years until his retirement from full time work in 2016. He began his career working in darkrooms gaining expertise in black and white printing before taking a role as a photographer for the Queensland Museum. This was an opportunity to follow his interests in natural history/wildlife photography as well as historical and cultural museum photography. As Senior Photographer for the Queensland Museum he worked on a series of natural history guide books to the flora and fauna of Queensland as well as being senior photographer for the magazine "Wildlife Australia" which at the time was published by the Queensland Museum. These publications were all very successful commercially for the museum through the 1990s and into the 2000s. Bruce Cowells interest in fine-art photography began in the teenage years and has continued to the present day. Influenced initially by the great pre and post second world war photographers like Bresson, Strand, Weston and Ansell Adams, his work consists mainly of real life "found" images rather than manufactured ones. His photography has been recognised in the publication "Who's Who in Visual Art - 100 Fine Art Photographers" published by Art Domain Whois Verlag, Leipzig, Germany. In 1988 he was engaged as an artist to produce images that were projected onto the giant sun-sails that covered much of the World Expo88 site in Brisbane. His abstract images of tropical plants, flowers and butterflies as well as Asian inspired imagery for projection over the Asian pavilions. Sixteen large Pani projectors were purchased to project these images which were on display for the six months of the expo. For the past six years Bruce Cowell has lived in Canberra, Australia and worked at the National Film and Sound Archive in motion picture film reformatting and digitization. Plans for retirement include a reinvigoration of his fine art work.
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