Waiting for a Moment that Might Never Come

When people ask what type of photographer I am I answer very strongly that I'm a documentary photographer.  In years past it was a mix of landscape, aerial, portraiture and mining genres.  But now, every aspect of what I do is about history and documenting this amazing world in which we live.

It is not done with a political purpose.  It is done because I feel that it is an important thing to do, though I realise that at the end of the day ultimately nothing is important.

Every time I return to my native Pilbara in Western Australia’s far north, that point gets drilled in to me.  When I sit photographing fossils that are 3.49 billion years old.  If the first appearance of life on earth could be equated to the start of a one hour movie, humans first appeared in the last half second of that movie.  These things give one a very good sense of perspective.

So when you have that perspective to work with, one can only do what feels important.  And that must come from deep inside one’s persona.

You can never be 100 percent sure that you are doing the right thing, but at the end of the day your gut feel and belief systems are all that you have to work with.

So over the last sixteen years I have worked hard to document aspects of the Pilbara and our world that are rapidly changing.  People and their stories.  The effect of the Chinese industrial transformation on the mining industry in Australia and Africa.  Changing towns.

My landscape photographs are very different to how they once were.  In years past I chased beauty in the landscape.  I watched for the light.  Then followed the light.  But, as I learned along the way, anyone can do that these days.  If the light is on song, any person can take a good photograph, whether they are a photographer or not.

So how to do things differently…….?  How to do things differently but still work in a way that feels important?

Today, I search for landscapes that are changing rapidly also.  In Australia, this is mainly because of mining.  So I look for landscapes that might not be around in years to come.  Or I look for important historical landmarks.  I search for and find those landmarks and then wait for the light. 

My aim now is not to take beautiful photographs.  It is to take photographs of important places at their most beautiful.

This can be very challenging.  Two recent photos in the Pilbara came at the end of 17 days of waiting.  That’s 17 days camped in the bush with temperatures over 40 degrees on most days.  Nothing, until, at the end of those 17 days, the universe grants me a gift. Then there was the teaser after a 36 day wait, not the shot I was after but I love the image.

You learn much about yourself and learning to live with nature when the conditions are like that and the opportunities are so limited.  It becomes a battle with oneself as much as it does the quest to make an important photograph.  Because nothing is certain in life and one cannot be certain that the photo will even come.

Take a wait earlier this year.  To date, I have waited 36 days for a photograph in the Pilbara and it still has not yet come.  Included in there has been a direct hit from a cyclone and eleven successive days where the temperature topped 45 degrees on all but one.  But I will return until I eventually make that photograph.  Whether it takes me one day or another two months.

Working in the Pilbara has yielded some of my greatest life experiences. I live each year for the months from December to March. Working out where to wait. Deciding when to go and when to stay. It's a bit like fishing a mate once said to me. You have to know when to leave fish and when to stay for fish. Photography is no different. But in the Pilbara the journey well and truly is what makes the destination.

A Chopper Trip of a Lifetime: Out Amongst a Huge Kimberley Wet Season

Have just returned from one of the biggest adrenalin kicks I think I’ll ever experience.

I’m working on the production of my new Kimberley hard-cover book and this last few days just happened: in a flash and without even a moment’s anticipation.  I’ll paint the picture:

It’s Monday night.  Wednesday, I head for Perth and my new home.  I’m working through my images for the new book and keep hitting the Bell Gorge one from my last book.  I hate it.  Can’t go to print again with that one in there.  How do I resolve it?  Talk to a photographer acquintance.  “How about going halves in a chopper with me?”  “No can do”, is the response.  That rules out the 44 (A$700 an hour between two of us, but a faster machine – it holds two passengers and gear- and means the only chopper option is a one passenger 22.  Got to go to Cockatoo (Island) for a shoot.

So, I ring Smithy (a Fitzroy mate).  “Smithy, I need solutions”.  “Ring Taffy, he’s got quad bikes out at Mt Hart.  See if he’ll lend you one of those. (We snuck quad bikes in a few years back and had a blast: me and a mate).”  “What’s the Gibb doing?”, I ask.  “It’s closed”, Smithy responds.  “What’s the fine if I get caught?” (I really need this image).  “Depends who catches ya” Smithy responds again (he works for the Shire).  “It’s a hundred bucks a vehicle if someone else gets ya”.  We both agree that that’s not too bad a cost to wear for what’s at stake.

So, I ring Taffy.  “No cigar.  Helicopter dreaming.  It’s the only way.  All the roads are cut.  Everything’s running a banker.  The country is soaked and the waterfalls are all cranking.  If you can do it, grab a chopper.  You might not see it again like this for a long time.”  “Hmmm”, I note (thinking that a muster chopper – an R22 and the smallest available - is going to cost at least A$1500 for under four hours of flying).  I put the phone down and after umming and ahhing ring Anthea and book the chopper.  Nervous as all hell because there’s no guarantee of getting the shots.  If it doesn’t come off, it’s an expensive day.  Nervous all Tuesday, and then, when I leave Broome, decide that regardless, I’m going to have a good day: if all else fails, it’ll be a good day.

I hit Derby at 2030 and then, after getting all my camera gear together, hit the kip by 2230.  I’m parked at Tony Gavranich’s place; a good friend in Derby.  Up at 0430 on Wednesday morning and meet Butch, my pilot, at 0515 at Derby Airport.  I’ve got two cameras, a pelican case, a hairbrush, film, two bottles of wine for dinner at Mt Hart, some tobacco for Taffy, panadol tablets (again for Taffy) and my contact lens solution.  The chopper simply won’t carry anything else.  I’ve teed for Butch and I to stay at Mt Hart on Wednesday night.  After Butch wheels out the chopper, we’re airborne at 0545.  Butch suggests we do Lennard Gorge en route to Bell.  “Yep, sounds good” is my response.

By 0700 we’re on the ground on the south side of the Lennard and at the top of the gorge.  The falls are steaming.  Think Niagara Falls steaming.  Last time I was here was about six years earlier: on my own.  I went for a tumble and fell 13 metres over the falls onto rocks below.  Fortunately, nothing broke on impact!

By 0715, we’re scaling a small rock-face on our way to the top of the falls.  First mishap occurs.  Rocks slippery.  I go for a tumble.  Deja vu!  I’m lucky and fall only two metres down what might very easily have been a 10 to 15 metre more serious fall down a rock-face.  Butch is more fazed than I.  “Geepers Hugh.  Don’t do that to me is his comment (as I check my camera gear to confirm it is okay).  You frightened the s#$% out of me.”  Butch is a top bloke: a great pilot and a top bloke.  He’s been in the Kimberley most of his life and one of the best pilots I’ve flown with.

We reach the top of the falls.  It starts to rain.  The falls are absolutely hammering.  The river’s hammering.  I swim an eddy to the right of the main flow which is quite safe and hug a rock-face to make sure I don’t get pulled down river as I return to get my umbrella.  It has started to rain.  Butch is sheltered under a rock-overhang, nursing my camera gear.  I swim back and start shooting.  It’s raining quite heavily.  Butch decides to head back to the chopper and I note “I won’t be long”.

As per usual, I get carried away and the “not long” turns into about an hour.  By the time I pack my gear up, and turn around to head back up the river has risen over a metre and a half in vertical depth and come outboard (ie claimed land) by about five to 10 metres.  It’s thumping.

It’s about now, that I hit problem number two.  Butch has left my remaining camera gear under the rock overhang – and which had been well back from the water.  That “high and dry” area is no longer so “high and dry”.  In fact, my 35mm kit and two lenses are floating.  Hmmm.  A A$6500 insurance job.  Okay.  Moving right along.  But there are bigger fish to fry.  My main camera is with me so that bit’s okay.  However, the point at which we had entered the shooting zone is no more.  It’s cannoning with water.  Issue number three.  “How the hell do I get out of here?”

There are two options.  Both are dodgy.  It’s raining and the rocks are slippery with lichen growth.  Option one – which looks like the most doable – has the highest penalty.  I slip and it’s adios amigos.  Don’t worry about getting washed down river: it’s more like getting pulverised into the rocks below by the sheer power of the water.  It’s incredible.  Like nothing I’ve ever seen.  Option two, looks more tricky, but has a lower penalty if things don’t come off: broken limbs at worst.  I start to go with option one and am perched precariously above the falls and considering a difficult traverse across a slippery rock face.

Change of plans.  A friend noted the other week that there is no such thing as an accident: rather it is the result of a series of poor decisions.  The adrenalin is kicking through me.  Time to reassess.  I sit and allow the nerves to settle.  Two options.  One: wait for the river to drop.  “No, not an option.  There’s photos to be had and the falls are all steaming.”  Two.  Try the other cliff-line.

I edge up the cliff bit by bit.  I’ve got about 15 or 16 kilos of camera gear, including a tripod.  It’s hard keeping one hand free, let-alone two.  I’m not placing two much reliance on my sandstone hand-holds.  In wet-weather they fracture far more easily.  Just as well.  A big slither sheers off and canons down into the river below.  Bit by bit, foot-step by foot-step, I manage to make it across the cliff-line.  No broken bones.  That’s positive.

By now, it’s time for issue number four.  The previously swimmable eddy has now become a definite “no-go” zone.  It’s boiling with whirlpools and undercurrents and has become down-right dangerous.  More climbing.  Bummer.

I place the pelican-case and dry-sack in a tree canopy which I plan to use as a leverage point to propel me up a small vertical piece of rock.  The pelican case and tree canopy decide to part company and so it’s back to the drawing boards.  I need to get it to rest on the ledge above without sliding off.  Mission accomplished.

Eventually, I reach Butch.  He’s amazed that the camera gear has succumbed.  “I never even thought about it”.  “Me neither, Butch”.  The river has risen so quickly and so much that our shelter point has become awash with water.  I relay the story and note that “if I go over the falls, I’ve got issues”.  “Yeah, that’s one way of looking at it.  I would say you’ve got major issues.  In fact, I would say you’re totally ^&*%$#”.  True.

Within minutes, we are airborne and powering over what is a deep chasm raging with water.  It’s an awesome spectacle.  We’re on to Bell Gorge.  Bell too is powering.  We’re there for a couple of hours - at least - hammering different angles and looking for something that no-one else will have got before.  That’s the beauty of this time of year and this place.  These areas have not been shot properly when they’re going at full-pelt.  Everyone is there to photograph them when they are more readily accessible.  Now, the only access mode is chopper and some sometimes tricky cliff-climbing (for more information, refer above!).

The country is magic.  I’ve never seen it like this before: even in the six previous wets that I have been up here and even when I have taken choppers out in monsoon times.  Seeing it like this is like buying a lottery ticket and you can’t say whether it will continue or what will happen: the weather up here can be fickle; even in the wet.

For much of the time, we’re flying metres above the tree-tops.  The country is a luminescent green.  The whole experience affords a surge of energy that happens rarely in a lifetime.  Water is cascading off every hill. Every place that might become a waterfall is flowing with water.  On leaving lower Bell Gorge Falls, we make for Mt Hart, but are again diverted by a beautiful waterfall and pandanus-lined waterhole.  I’m looking for something that will convey the essence of the Kimberley as much as its beauty: something more than pretty pictures and raging water.  To me, these waterholes are the essence of the west-Kimberley.  We’re there for more than an hour, before again we are airborne.  There are waterfalls coming off every hill.

By 1830, we’re eating dinner with Taffy and Annabelle.  We’re being treated like royalty.  A three course dinner and wine is followed by bed.  So much for “I hope you don’t mind roughing it a little; we’re not really geared up for visitors at this time of year.”  Taffy has two pure-bred dingoes which are quite beautiful.  One is the tamest dingo I have seen.  I’m pumped and don’t sleep much all night.  The whole day has blown me away.  I awake the next morning to the howls of dingo packs and birds.  More magic.  Breakfast is a repeat of the efforts of the evening before: cooked and big.  Butch takes Annabelle for a joy-flight as thanks for their hospitality while I talk with Taffy: they’re both lovely people and we all know many of the same people.

We’re slow getting airborne this morning: it must have been around 0800.  The legs today are sore: mainly muscle-tired from boulder hopping and climbing up and down rock-faces with gear.  We fly over Twin Falls, down past the Dromedaries and along spectacular Isdell Gorge to the confluence of the tidal and the salt.  The gorge is grand and flanked by two hundred metre perpendicular cliff-lines.

Butch spots a couple of wedgetailed eagles and approaches for closer inspection, before we land so that I can get some shots shooting up the gorge: probably not shots to write home about, but a spectacular, awesome seen nevertheless.  I’d love to raft the Isdell next Wet.  The sun is trying to break through the cloud and it is steamy.  The river is running hard and the negotiation of the spinifex and sandstone hard-work as we work around to get the shots I sighted from the chopper.  Again, we’re airborne.  We drop from the edge of the cliff into the void of the gorge.  We’re headed for Reva Falls.  This is all amidst some of the most remote, yet spectacular, country on the Australian mainland.

Reva Falls are also stunning and we spend a couple of hours there.  I take a swim in between shots – fully clothed (it’s too hot to take the shirt off) - before we make our way up the Sprigg and the largest perpendicular cliffs in the West Kimberley: another magic rafting location.  I might need more than one trip per Wet!  Our return to Mt Hart is halted by a stop at one of the largest Boabs in the Kimberley: possibly the largest.  It has a chest-height girth of around seventeen metres: an old tree.  A scrub bull nearby makes us aware of his presence.  We spot him as we make our departure.

Lunch and further Mt Hart hospitality is followed by a second trip to Lennard Gorge.  I am not confident with my shots from the day before.  Rain and the difficulties of manoeuvring safely had compromised my ability to shoot freely yesterday.

The river has dropped to the pre-rain heights of yesterday morning.  We’re there a couple more hours, before we have to make tracks.  We will be pushing into a headwind and we have to reach the ground before dark and allow ourselves time to fly around any storms with which we might cross paths.  The country is still awash with water: the Lennard, the Fletcher, the Barker, the Meda and the May are raging torrents of brown.  The plains of Napier Downs are one giant soak and the country is a luminescent green.

Even if the photos don’t come out, I’ve had one of the experiences of a lifetime.  The best A$2000 I think I’ve ever spent.  Wow.  And all without a change of clothes and just my camera, film, toothpaste and two bottles of wine.

Dodging Camels and Dingoes: All in the Course of a Morning’s Photo Shoot

Monday. Day nine. 0945. Middle of the desert. Love it. Just passed four camels. Going up and over sand ridge at the minute. Have decided to push down the gas pipeline track to see if I can avoid the rough track back. Working on a hunch that there will be a track in from Mt Cecil back to Warrawagine.

This morning was a bit of a non-event. Very cold.  Lot of moisture around. Was the usual story about the bear and the moose. Look out for the bear and the moose will get you. Was worried about dingoes when I went to bed last night. Got up this morning at 0425 and just as I was about to head off noted a herd of camels blocking my path. Couldn’t see the bull so took care and gave them a wide berth. But kept walking toward my destination. About a half an hour in noticed that there was cloud on the eastern horizon and likely to bugger the photo. That proved correct. In fact it was a thick fog pushing in from the east rapidly. Climbed to my chosen spot but got nothing so then made my way back to camp. The camels let me know they were around before I got a visual. Could hear that all-too-familiar gurgle that they do in their throat. So now just taking care not to get stuck on sandhills given the extra weight inn the trailer. But fun. Love it out here.

Did a radio interview with the ABC Rural Report just prior to leaving last night’s camp. Lucie Bell. Nice girl. Was funny doing it from the middle of the desert given that it was a bit of a miracle that I was getting signal.

2130. Just pulled up for the day. That turned out to be a very big day, though mostly fun. Decided to follow the gas pipeline track not marked on the maps to get out thinking that I could then track west and pick up a track leading into the station. Idea was to protect what are new tyres on the vehicle from the many stakes.

Well that idea was a fail. Ended up costing me nearly 300 kilometres to get back to the station and countless sandhills. The only downside was the countless stopping to secure the motor bike on the trailer I was towing. No matter how hard I ratcheted it down the undulations and countless juvenile termite mounts on the track that I kept hitting shook it loose. At one stage I lost the tail-board of the trailer which necessitated a retrace of about eleven kilometres - pain in the bum - and then back again. I came out somewhere near Telfer and then had another 150 or so kilometres just to get to the station homestead.

However, the sense of isolation and freedom amongst the sandhills was wonderful. I only got anxious when I thought I would come out at Telfer and that would have meant I’d reach the station after dark. Passed another four camels early in the drive and then settled into sandhill after sandhill. Was a bit concerned at first because towing trailer and carrying weight, but turned out to be okay as had dropped the tyres to 20psi the other day because of the thick sand I was passing through.

Country looked not too bad though have seen it more lush. That was back in 2011 after heavy summer rains.

Jumped into the Oakover River on the way back to the station for a wash. Water freezing cold but invigorating nevertheless.

I’m fortunate to be able to do what I do. Settling right back into the swing of things up here. Love this country. Had a nice meal at Warrawagine with Scott and Annette and they’ve said I’m okay to use the trail bike again when I come back in ten days or so. Scott commented that the last few days were as cold at night as he had seen it out in this country in the last 12 years. Was good to see them again after a couple of years. They offered me a bed for the night but I declined. Now that I’m back in the swag, even if I’m not getting a lot of sleep, it’s good to stay in the groove.

Shortly to bed. Need to map out a plan to accommodate the adverse weather coming later in the week. Bit unusual. But flexibility is key out here.

Learning Life’s Lessons in the 2016/7 Kimberley Wet

4:30pm. The Spinny Hotel, Derby. Game over. This morning I crunched out 23 kilometres in five hours walking. The going was hard but progress was good. The black mud turned my boots into moon boots with an inch caked right around both soles. It added a kilo at least to the weight of each.
 
But my main concern had been crossing the Calder (River). Light rain, that I had thought would stop, never abated. It got heavier. It was a race against time to get to the Calder before it rose too high. But even though my pace was good, it was to no avail. I reached the river but it was running too high and too fast to cross with the prospect of more rain to come. It would not be dropping for one week and possibly longer.

Too long to sit it out. So I signalled back to Derby for the chopper to come. Only problem was, would it come? So I set up my shelter. Soaking wet. Rain still pouring. Anticipating as many as two days to wait. Got under the shelter and out of the rain. Bordering on cold but not quite. Amazingly, the chopper arrived within about three hours and soon I was up in the air flying over the magnificent Kimberley. So incredible, and most people never ever see it at this time of year. The best experiences of my life have nearly always involved the Kimberley in the wet, plus helicopters!
 
Flying back over the Kimberley, rain pouring down, doors off on the chopper, the country was a luminescent green. On the flight home we took a route I had never flown before. Normally I can work out where I am from the air flying around the Kimberley and the Pilbara.

Today we tracked west of the Calder, the river that brought my progress to a halt. Flew past the magnificent escarpment lines of the Harding Range and then over the Walcott Inlet. A place that I was lucky not to be munched on by a croc a few years back when my boat sank at 7:30pm in the evening and I had to swim 50 metres in the dark. It’s one of Australia’s most dangerous waterways and known for its big crocs, particularly where I had to do the swim. I got to the bank, looked back and saw a croc was nestled up against my now upturned boat.

On the south side of the Walcott this afternoon, though, we took time for a play, scoping out the paperbark and freshwater swamps looking for signs of crocodile nesting activity. And then it was onto Derby, across the Meda River.
 
I felt comfortable with what I had achieved this trip. First with Joe, who was with me for three and a bit days of the trip, and then on my own.

I had pushed through the most brutal terrain. When every part of me had wanted to pull out, I had found a way to keep going. Even when it was 20 plus kilometres of near continuous swamp; sandstone country amongst the harshest Australia has to offer; brutal heat; near 100 percent humidity; mosquitoes like I'd never, ever seen before. Even yesterday, when I had nothing at all to give, I found a way to keep going. I was proud of myself. Not something I’d usually say about a failed mission. 
 
But it’s why I pursue these experiences. Because of the lessons they present and those diamonds that emerge and are forged under the great intensity. It gives me great confidence­­—no matter how tough things get, you can always find a way to keep going, even when every aspect of your being is screaming for relief.
 
But the reality was the Calder. Not only was it fast and high, but upstream and down there were deep pools. Just crossing through some swamp to get to the edge of the river had me on alert. There are no natural barriers between the freshwater upstream here and the saltwater downstream so lots of reasons for crocs to be here. If I was to be swept away by the current it introduced another croc risk that I would not be able to manage.
 
So it’s back to civilisation and now I wait for a meal I have craved for days. Barramundi. I’m told that a big system is set to dump 400mm of rain on the Kimberley these next few days. I’m told I dodged a bullet. But I also know, with 100 percent personal surety, that I would still be out there if it weren’t for the failed crossing of the Calder. 
 
Coming close to finding the Rosetta Stone, that’s deep inside everyone, is not an opportunity one gets to experience many times in their lives and I feel my fingertips had touched it, ever so slightly, that day. Instead of tucking into the barramundi, I’d much rather be out there, being taught those life lessons that I go out to learn. But I made the only decision I could take under the circumstances­­—the right one. This trip didn’t go the distance but the lessons—those diamonds—are presenting themselves already.

China v. West Africa WBC Boxing: Just Another Day Aboard an African Aeroplane

Sitting here at Kotoka Airport in Accra. Just been worked over as usual. Travelling as a photographer, airport travel is one of the more unenjoyable challenges. You're loaded up to the hilt so you know you're going to get hit with excess luggage. It's just a matter of limiting the damage.

Today, not too bad only to be told once I got upstairs that they'd botched it up and my luggage bill was nearly doubling. I had 57 kilos checked in I think. That's not including the 30 or so kilos that I'm sneaking onboard with me. Then, when I got upstairs, through customs and screening I was told that one of my bags had been detained by security and that I had to go all the way back downstairs again and go through the same rigmorole (spell?) again. Got downstairs only to be told that everything was okay and that I could go back upstairs again: through customs, through security and screening, etc.

So now not a happy camper. My video guy back in late 2010 got detained in Dubai for nearly 30 hours because they thought his gyro-stabiliser was in fact a bomb. He ended up having to can his flight and re-route through Addis Abiba in Ethiopia. Just hope this bloody plane takes off and we don't need to get out and push it. Asky is the airline. Don't like flying these airlines I've never heard of but that's part and parcel of travelling in Africa. You just put your life into the luck of the draw. But life's a lottery whichever way you look at it.

Nearly got bowled over at a zebra crossing this morning crossing one of Accra's busiest roads. My fault. Was looking one way and then this taxi driver just came charging through. I don't subscribe to this trying to make the world perfectly safe back home. Keeping safe over here brings a healthy level of awareness in my view that benefits one in other ways. It keeps you alive, pardon the pun.

Things a shambles here on the tarmac in Lome: the capital of the West African country of Togo. We've been delayed an hour at least already.

Story appears to be this. Lady travelling from Addis Ababa in Ethiopa to Bamako is sitting with two other friends. Only trouble is that she has been allocated a different seat for the sector from Lome to Bamako. Poor old Charlie Chinaman gets onto plane to find his seat is taken by the lady. Lady is asked by cabin staff to move but won't. A fight erupts and there's punches and whatever else flying around.

That's about when I started to try and work out what was going on. So security/ police get on board to take her off. But now she's built a bit of a following among the Africans onboard, which is about 80% of the plane, and the police are reluctant to remove her because they fear that the rest of the passengers will turn violent against them. So police leave the plane.

At this point, pretty much two thirds of the flight are standing up and watching what's going on or actively participating. It's the Malians against the Chinese bloke. Poor old Charlie Chen (I don't think that's his name by the way) is stuck in the middle. He wants his seat but is now pitted against most of a West African country. All the discussion is in French being a Francophone country. Probably a bit of Chinese from the Chinese bloke but no- one can understand him so he's better off saying nothing.

Now the discussions/ altercation have moved into my part of the plane. People yelling and shouting. Couple of us laughing. One passenger going ballistic because the plane is late. Woman now standing next to me. I'm in the middle of it. As a French bloke just said to me, just as well not happening in Mali where we are bound. Plane could be broken into north and south parts and then it could really be on. Country is in a middle of a coup.

Passengers now yelling at each other. Quite humorous though need to keep head down which is what I'm doing. Heat continues to rise here. Keep head down. Typing this is helping. TIA. This is Africa. Woman going ballistic now. Blokes yelling back trying to assuage her. Chinese bloke sitting next to me - they're everywhere on this plane - has no idea. Chinese is his language. French has him buggered.

That said, if they band together this could turn into an international conflict. The world's largest country against a West African country. Could be here for hours at this rate. This could erupt into an all-in in which case I will have to down my computer...If I join it becomes a world conflict rather than just an inter-country conflict.

Airports and air travel interesting in Africa. Whenever cabin crew tell you to be seated in the departure lounge you do the opposite. Today's discussion was typical. Walk up to the departure gate when a few started the stampede. "Please Sir be seated" I was told with the others. I start to do what they request and then a bloke says: "Please, Sir. Your boarding pass", after which I presented it to him. "Okay, you can go", he said. All in the space of 30 seconds.

20 minutes later. Things have quietened a fair bit. Plane still shows no sign of moving.

1910. So have just arrived at the hotel in Bamako. One of President Gadafi's hotels I think. Long day. Left hotel at 0845 and have only just lobbed. Particularly long given that it's only about a 90 minute flight from Accra. But you get that. TIA.

So eventually the altercation on the plane settled and we left about two hours after the listed departure time. Not sure what ended up happening with Charlie Chen and the African woman but the rest of the plane settled and we were able to take off. Mind you, when it landed the smoke hadn't finished coming off the tyres as we skidded down the runway and everyone was up on their feet pulling out their bags from the overheads. The hosties gave up trying to tell everyone to sit down and by the time we hit the taxi-way pretty much everyone had got their bags from the overheads. Again, TIA. But there's something about it that you have to laugh at and love.

A Tale of Two Summers

This series of photographs is testament to the axiom that nothing in life is guaranteed, no matter how hard we try or how hard we work.

Midway through the shooting of this book my focus and approach changed enormously.  To that point I’d worked hard to take the most beautiful images that I could in a way that gave a strong representation of the diversity of the region: people, scenery and industry.

Photography has changed a lot these last few years.  The advent of digital photography has made it easy for even the most novice photographer to take stunning images.  No longer is that skill the domain of the professional.  I wanted the whole of the collection being produced for this book to reflect a direction that I’d been taking for quite a number of years: photos that captured aspects of our world that were being subject to rapid change.  Photographs that, in years to come, would be meaningful and important to people; not just beautiful.  This direction was set in the context of this book while waiting for an image of The Governor to the north of Newman.  I’d waited for 17 days and gave myself another two or three before the weather went to sleep for another summer and the clear blue skies of the dry season took over.

So at the end of the summer of 2012-13 I returned home with the aim of coming back the following summer to target the country in and around Mt Farquhar in the western part of the Hamersley Range.  A place that not many people ever get to see, other than the “money men (high viz)”.  A place to which access would shortly be closed to most for ever.  A place that would be subject to heavy development pressure.

I figured that I’d apply the same approach that I had in shooting The Governor and that brains (through my study of the weather and its patterns) and persistence (to stay there and wait) would wear my subject down.  In other words, I’d come back and almost certainly get what I was after.

So it was with anticipation and knowledge that the waiting would not be easy that I returned prior to Christmas in 2013.  Over two visits I waited 36 days for near zero results.  By the time I returned home late in January of 2014 the cupboard was bare and I knew that another visit would be required.  Other than a couple of “filler” images the only thing that visit yielded was a direct hit from Cyclone Christine and stepping on a baby king brown the following day while getting a fire prepared.

Back I came on Christmas Day of 2014.  Many Europeans think of Christmas in the context of snow.  For me, it’s the northern storms at this time of year.  They are out of this world.  Enriching.  Invigorating.  There is no better feeling than the smell of impending rain and the nightly skyshow.  This time I would surely get what I had come for.  Persistence always wins the day, right?

Nature though again had other ideas, and it was not until day 53 of my wait which now spanned two summers, that I got my first sniff.  Two minutes of light was it.  I finished my shoot, uneasy and uncertain as to whether I had secured what I’d come for.

So I decided to stay.  I figured I’d wait until the end of this summer and come back the next and the one after if I could and had to.

In today’s world, everything is about the quick bang.  The sugar fix as I call it. We all want things quickly and without having to work for it.  Our attention spans five seconds more often than not.

What I was doing here was the antithesis of that.  But I figured that the best buildings are set on the deepest foundations and I had a really strong feeling that what I was doing was right, despite many questioning the sense behind my desire to kep going.  Our gut usually knows what’s right I figure and I pay most attention to that.

It was another 10 days before the universe started to deliver.  Day 63 or something like that.  But over a period of four consecutive nights I got what I came for plus more.  It was like the universe had waited to see how fair dinkum I was and then said: “Righto, you’re serious.  Here’s what you’re after plus a whole heap more.”

The first night of this run of four I was so nervous to not stuff it up.  Shooting film so many more uncertainties come into the equation and you don’t know whether you’ve got the results until you arrive home and the film gets back from Sydney.  On the second of these four nights I decided to play and the power of the instinct cut in again.

I’d spend many many days driving and walking the length of the Mt Farquhar section of the range looking for the angle that captured what I wanted to show.  Smashing the vehicle in the process.  But I’d never really been comfortable.  On this night I followed my gut and ended up in a spot I could never have imagined captured everything that I’d been trying to show and a bit more.  Down the end of an exploration track.  It was awesome.

Nights three and four of this sequence were amazing as well, and over this really short time period I was able to capture each of the aspects of the 150 kilometre section of range that I’d been trying to show.  Places that only a privileged very few will ever get to experience.

But because I was shooting film, I’d not known whether I’d gotten the results.  So I had to stay longer.  It was about day 74 before I finally went home.

By the time I went home the trip/ wait was no longer about the images.  These had become a secondary aspect to the rich and wonderful journey that I’d followed out here.  I’d learnt that success was not a birthright or deserved simply because one works hard.  But I’d learnt that these harder and more challenging experiences are ultimately what gives our lives a richness and flavour that don’t tend to come so much in the absence of struggle.

The journey had become more about the little things than the camera and photo.  The brumbies that I’d come to watch so closely.  The dingoes that came into my camp on a couple of occasions.  One caught and ate a lizard in the spinifex only metres from view. The bird that lapped my head only metres away while taking a photo.  It was about living comfortably in the bush.  Loving the evenings and the early mornings.  Appreciating how lucky I was to be in such a stunning location every day I was there.  Even now, as I write this, from the “comfort” of an aeroplane I yearn to be back out there.  Looking out to and feeling that range every day.

Inner Suffering/ Hard Lives: A Project to Photograph the People of Roebourne

In May of 2013 I travelled back to the Pilbara to continue working on a new book that was near to completion.

The weather turned out to be no good: cloudy everyday and raining often.  Weather totally anathema to the concept of the Northern Dry Season.

So rather than sit down and moan about the weather, and with the help of a very good friend Susan Shirtliff and her partner Stephen, I got stuck into Roebourne and photographed and interviewed some of the people of that town: a town that will be subject to enormous change in the coming years.

The project fits with my desire to capture aspects of occupations, peoples, landscapes and lifestyles that are rapidly disappearing.

The journey proved to be one of the more incredible of my life.  I aimed to spend the better part of a day with each subject so that I could drive into the essence of who they were as people.

On more than one occasions people shed tears.  For some I felt it to be a therapeutic process.  It helped me become a better listener.  I quietly shed a tear on more than one occasion.  The stories were moving and very powerful: contrary to the perceptions most people have of Roebourne.

I photographed one who had worked on the hydrogen bomb tests in the Central Pacific in the 1950s.  It was his job to retrieve the cameras after the bombs went off.  He wore a protective suit which got hosed down and burnt after the bombs went off.  He described trees falling as dominoes with the impact of the blast.  Dead fish.  Lots of dead birds.  An incredible sound that no-one could ever prepare one for.

I photographed another that lost four brothers to mesothelioma.  Three worked on the trucks from Wittenoom.  One had no exposure to asbestos other than that kicked up by the sheep as they walked over broken asbestos bags that had fallen off the trucks.

Another described the death of his sister in a car accident on gruesome and sickening detail.  It still moves me that story to now.

Still others moved me with how they had turned their lives around.  In and out of jail, battling the booze, now powerful community leaders determined to improve the lives of the people in their fold and steer them away from the mistakes they had made.  Their inner strength was incredible.

And there were two other Aboriginal women I met on different days while scouting for subjects.  Cracker stories.  Cracker people.  One had slammed the bottle, drugs and everything else, been in jail for twelve years for murder, but revelled in her past.  She'd not wasted a day.

My experience with Roebourne showed that stereotypes are just that.  Generalisations that miss the essence of a person or people.  If we accept generalisations too readily we close our eyes to so many incredible possibilities (exception being Freo supporters!)