All in Documentary
If you ever find yourself in Derby in the Kimberley region of WA, it’s surely only a matter of time before you discover the Norval Gallery. It is crammed full of artist Mark Norval’s work, past and present, along with artwork by other local artists and it’s a feast for the eyes.
Steve’s been away working over on Koolan Island recently, so Jazzy and I have been on our own in Broome for part of the last month, spending a lot of time around Town Beach. This was the day we got a lesson from some local kids in finding hermit crabs in the roots of the mangrove trees.
We spent a few days camping at Port Smith on our way up to Broome. A time of mud maps in red dust, and footprints on pristine white beaches; lagoons and mangroves and the feeling that we'd arrived in crocodile country; low, low tides and sand patterns; and so many brolgas.
Living in Denmark and spending the last few months quietly meandering through the Wheatbelt and station country, approaching Port Hedland was an assault on the senses! The outback gave way to multi-lane highways, zigzagging railway tracks, a sky full of wires, and very large machinery operating everywhere you looked. In other words, plenty of new things to point my camera at!
To stand in Deep Gorge, surrounded by deep red boulders etched with the world’s largest and most important collection of petroglyphs (Aboriginal rock carvings) dating back half to one million years, is breathtaking. It’s a quick-fire way to make you feel insignificant in the big picture. To turn 180 degrees and be confronted by millions of tons of metal structured into a huge industrial plant just a few hundred metres away is heartbreaking.
It was a stunning backdrop at Exmouth’s town beach for Gascoyne in May’s performance at the 2019 Ningaloo Whale Shark Festival. The ocean in the gulf was glassy and the sky was full of drama as the sun set and the show began.
Over the years I’ve taken hundreds of photos at Warroora Station and each time I try to capture it differently. This year I photographed circus performers at sunset - that was unexpected and definitely gave me the opportunity to photograph Warroora in a different way! Gascoyne in May is a coordinated circuit of festivals held annually across the region, and the performers were staying at Warroora Station’s Dudley House for a week of rehearsals before the Ningaloo Whale Shark Festival in Exmouth…
For the last nine years Carey Downs Station has been home to the McKeough family. They are in the process of setting up so they can offer station stays and were keen to get their own stock library of images ready for their website and social media. Steve and I spent a long day following a map that showed tracks and landmarks such as soaks and bores, to the spots that had been marked on for us to photograph. Over the course of the day I tried to capture the remoteness, the harshness, the beauty, the colours, the scenery, the 4wd tracks, and the history...
After a fun few days with Frances and David at Wooleen Station we headed north to Carey Downs Station. The recent rains that had allowed swimming and canoeing on the Murchison River, also meant there were plenty of wash-outs and road closures. We fuelled up at Murchison Settlement, checked out the road report, asked Wink and the roadhouse for his local knowledge, and opted to take the most direct route via the back tracks…but kept our fingers crossed.
We set off on our meander through WA with no set time frame and no planned route. There was however a couple of places we knew we wanted to go which gave us a rough skeleton of a plan when we left home on the south coast of WA. Wooleen Station was one of those places. We’ve visited Wooleen a few times before, in fact we photographed Frances and David’s wedding a couple of years ago…
The pub at Yalgoo is quite spectacular when seen for the first time hot pink and glowing in the late afternoon sun. However, it’s the paint job inside that’s the show stealer - the liberal use of a garish green the likes of which I’ve never seen before, certainly not in nature, but somehow, in this setting, it actually works. The walls are largely bare except for a couple of jokey 80s-style alcohol-related posters, a collection of old Yalgoo number plates, and an upside-down Exit sign.
Yalgoo, affectionately known as The Goo, feels like that one-horse town. There’s still plenty of evidence of its once thriving past, and the town has obviously realised that if it is to stay alive in the 21st century, it needs to keep its history alive too…
If ever there’s a man who seizes the day it’s Mick, and his wife Judy seems more than happy to be going along for the ride…
Just when I was thinking that nothing much had changed in Mukinbudin, I discovered that this tiny Wheatbelt town was far more progressive than I’d imagined…the Men’s Shed had women members too!
