Welcome to the desert…
Another twist of fate prevailed and due to a sad family event not was time to leave Newcastle forever.
Mickey and I decided to pack up as many of our belongings into the Pintara I bought selling frames and trusses for my Dad, whilst studying at uni and cross the country.
Imagine a 6 month old baby, a vibrant 4 year old and a married couple, 25 nd 29 years old, madly in love, heading off.
So on new years day the road trip into the unknown was on.
Driving from Newcastle to Perth.
Mickey, ever the adventure junkie made our trip which was fraught with deep sadness for me, into a holiday. We went the long way around the Great Ocean Road.
Our car was so jam packed that I couldn’t even see Mickey, Paris’ doll house was wedged between the drivers and passengers seat and we held hands over the top of it.
We first lived at the backpackers in a family room, if I remember correctly we had $100 in our bank when we landed in Perth. I loved it there, Perth was a dream come true.
Within weeks we experienced our first set back, whilst I was out at night class, photography class ironically, due to a faulty oven door Jimi sustained 3rd degree burns on his hands and I spent 10 days at the Princess Margaret Children’s hospital burns unit.
I felt so alone but I never left my babies side.
A few months later we were off on another, even bigger adventure.
The Western Australian Outback.
Kalgoorlie!!
Red dirt, arid landscape and amazing skies.
I spent many years in and out of the outback, Kalgoorlie twice, Marble Bar, Sandstone and Leinster.
Death Adders, extreme heat and tank water that made me sick after I drank it.
This was an amazing time in my photography journey.
It’s the skies that inspired me. The clouds, the storms, the red earth.
Perhaps the endless open spaces were a metaphor for me regarding life and my career? Endless possibilities that stretch out to the horizon; a horizon even if you walk all day, every day, you never reach.
I think back on it now and think how crazy I was, fearless.
I used to pack the little ones into the car and drive 40 minutes out into the middle of nowhere, I discovered an abandoned sheep station with amazing back drops. Rusty shearing sheds, weather timber fences, old farm buildings. I would load the camera with black and white film and take the and shoot portraits. I was hyper focused on black and white film and how it strips back all which is superfluous. I was also obsessed with cross processing.
I remember one afternoon throwing the kids and camera gear into the car in blind panic because the sky suddenly turned to a almost black, cloaked in dark green haze, a huge storm was charging in.
Hail clouds.
Lightning splintering down from what seemed like everywhere..
It was approaching twilight and that’s is when the Kangaroos roam. I had to drive that station wagon like a bullet bolting down a barrel, the storm chasing right behind us. It is that moment you must decide, what’s worse, a roo smashing through the windscreen and tearing me to pieces or hail smashing all over the car, flash flooding and being stranded with Mickey totally unaware of where we were.
Put the pedal down and pray!!
Those outback days were the ultimate adventure and freedom.
Where my love for environmental portraiture was born.
A gift.
The image above is a cross processed double exposure, shot in Sandstone, a few kilometres from the sheep yards. It features Paris-Elisabeth, my most giving photography practice subject.
Thank you Paris.