Two of my favourite trees. I have to go and say hello every time I pass through here. I’ve shot them by night, by moonlight, even by firelight, working all night until the sun came up and the magic was gone. But this is the best shot, so far.
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Dancing Boabs, Cockburn Ranges, WA
Evening at Crab Creek, Broome, WA - AUD$1500
I knew there had to be a picture here, it was just a case of waiting it out. So I camped here for six weeks until something remarkable happened. It was a lovely camp, nice and peaceful, I was very happy to be there, after all the constant movement.
One afternoon this little storm cell formed out to sea, mimicking the shape of that lovely rock. Two frames only. By the time I’d loaded another roll it was gone
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Evening at Crab Creek, Broome, WA
Afternoon Rain, Bollards Lagoon - AUD$1500
I was marooned for three days on this sandhill after heavy rains moved through this country with boggy ground both ahead and behind me. So while I had to wait for the track to dry out I had a chance to wander the sandhills looking for pictures, and here the last of the rains are falling in the beautiful afternoon light.
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Afternoon Rain, Bollards Lagoon
Grassfire, Pine Creek, NT - AUD$1500
I was traveling with the writer Thomas Keneally. We were working on a book on the Northern Territory together, and here I was driving the car when we came upon this scene. There was no time to explain, I jumped out of the car and through the flames to get to these trees. My boots were smoking from the heat.
When I got back to the car Tom was looking a bit concerned because you’re not really supposed to stop the car and run away in the middle of a bushfire!
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Grassfire, Pine Creek, NT
Hamersley Gorge, WA - AUD$1500
The sound of water trickling through this gorge brought me to this slender ribbon of water flowing over the rocks, but the folded form of the strata in the distance almost took me away, but I didn’t want to leave the water, so the only alternative was to play one form as it echoed against the other.
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Hamersley Gorge, WA
Heart shaped Rock, Ubirr, Kakadu, NT - AUD$1500
I had been working with the traditional owner of this country, Old Man Bill Neidjie, recording a story that he wished to leave for his people before he died. It was obvious how much Old Man loved his country; much of his life had been dedicated to saving it from being mined for uranium - hence Kakadu National Park - it was Bill’s idea to create a Park where black and white could work together and look after the country.
In my last weeks I wanted to shoot a picture that expressed the love that Old Man had for this place, and on top of the lookout at Ubirr, overlooking the floodplain where he grew up as a child, I found this pool with a heart-shaped rock within it. All I had to do was wait for the day when a Wet Season storm approached, shoot it, and get off the lookout before I got soaked.
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Heart shaped Rock, Ubirr, Kakadu, NT
In The Marbles, NT - AUD$1500
These rocks surround The Devil’s Marbles, north of Tennant Creek, and there’s nothing else around there, just a grove of these lovely boulders in an immensity of space. If you could hear this picture there would be only a silence punctuated by the rustling of the wind through the gumleaves of that slender tree. A place to hear your own heartbeat.
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In The Marbles, NT
Jim Jim Falls, Kakadu, NT - AUD$1500
I had only just arrived in Kakadu, and went to National Park HQ for my permit to photograph the place. The Rangers told me that I should hurry down to Jim Jim Falls straightaway as the road to them was due to be closed the next day for months as the Wet Season took hold and the country flooded.
When I got there a gentle storm moved through the gorge, a rumble of thunder echoing along the walls. There was no-one else there; I had the scene all to myself, the last visitor for the year.
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Jim Jim Falls, Kakadu, NT
Knock em Down Storm, Nardab floodplain, Ubirr, Kakadu, NT - AUD$1500
These are the last of the Wet Season storms, they move through the country in April, sudden thunderstorms that knock down the groves of speargrass that grow taller than a man, and they herald the beginning of The Dry Season. Millions of dragonflies hatch out at this time, there’s one sitting on that anthill.
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Knock em Down Storm, Nardab floodplain, Ubirr, Kakadu, NT
Lightning at Kynuna, Queensland - AUD$1500
I was camped for the night near the billabong where Banjo Paterson had stayed and set the scene for ‘Waltzing Matilda.’ I even tried to shoot the swaggie’s camp; a classic failure. But in the night this wonderful storm blew up, so I opened the camera shutter, left it for minutes, and let the lightning do its thing, relishing the smell of rain on damp earth carried on the wind.
THE GALLERY
