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My Story
Just after I turned 15, I moved from Brisbane to the Outback and on to one of the biggest cattle properties in Australia, Brunette Downs in the Northern Territory. This is where my love of photography was born. I felt I needed to not only learn the workings of a cattle station, but to capture on film, images of the station and inland Australia. Those images I could then share with others, while reliving and telling the stories of outback station life.
I wrote this blog on 23 November 2013 but it still rings true today
As far as I was concerned, history was being created all the time.
There were action packed moments at rodeos, while mustering mobs of cattle, during yard work with horses and even during those calmer moments sitting around camp fire yarning, or just watching the glorious outback sunsets.
Those moments in time, mainly innocuous, but always sublime, were recorded by me, for sharing.
After five years of Governessing on five different properties in the NT, around the Gulf and Winton areas, I married Rick and “home”, at Goodwood Station.
My love and respect for this land has deepened as the years have rolled on, managing a working cattle property.
I’ve worked alongside Rick, had two kids and enjoyed having them grow and work alongside us. It has been a journey of learning; learning about our industry; learning about the land; learning about all those characters that walked before us and learning how they shaped the history that shapes our path.
This land completes me; I feel so much a part of it. I love the beauty of all of Australia’s diverse landscapes, but the wide open spaces of outback Queensland have captured my heart. I feel as one with the land.
My love for capturing Outback moments on film has never waned. My challenge is to capture nature’s beauty, her natural light, just the way it is.
As far as I am concerned, there is no need to photographically enhance the beauty of my home, which I see every day, whether it be during wet seasons, in the midst of drought, on chilly winter mornings, or on scorching summer days – mother nature is quite capable of speaking for herself. All I have to do is capture the moment.
The Outback has a language all of its own. It is like a book, open for us to read and we only have to study its signs to comprehend the land’s never ending story. Everything on the land and in the land has a story to tell; the shape and placement of the trees; the colour and size of the rocks and stones; the shape and width of the creeks.
We just have to take the time to observe, to acknowledge what we see and then reap the benefit of taking the time to get to know this land. Treat the land with disrespect and it has a harsh unforgiving attitude. Study it, heed its story and the land will repay you with endless insights.
I can listen to its silence and feel a connection to its ancient cycles. I can feel its pain when it is drained of life giving water during drought and I can feel the anticipation of an awakening when long anticipated, reviving rains, finally arrive.
I steal glorious instances of Mother Nature’s beauty; I capture momentary explosions of energy as rough stock leave chutes, or a man and horse work as one: I save the candid moments of Outback personalities; I file away all those magical moments of our Outback lives; I share them all through my photographs.
When I take my photographs and then share them, I hope I can make the viewer feel as though they are a part of those historical moments, able to sense the atmosphere and power of the land and all that is in it and of how humbling it is to be a part of this ancient land.
Footnote:
There have been many people on this photography journey with me, but as I said it all started at Brunette Downs.
The Gough Family, Brian, Shirley, Kathi and Amanda, gave a 15 year old an opportunity, welcomed me into their family, which I will be forever grateful for and my Outback adventure began and hasn’t finished.
