Before marrying Dianne, Terry was living at the northern end of Leonora’s main street, in the house he’d grown up in. An avid collector, Terry has spent many, many hours treasure-hunting at the Leonora tip…
All in Lives Well Lived
Vaso - Boulder WA
I spotted this snappy-dressed gent, tapping away on his iPhone, as I drove down the main street of Boulder in the Goldfields recently…
Wally - the Carnabys Cockatoo man
With a lifelong passion for both the birds and the bees, dating all the way back to his childhood growing up at Clontarf Boys’ Town, apiarist Wally Kerkoff is well respected in bird and conservation circles. He has spent over 30 years designing and constructing artificial logs for placement in the Carnaby’s Black Cockatoo breeding areas of Moora and Mogumber in WA. With the shortage of suitable natural nesting trees, this work has been essential in building numbers of the endangered Carnaby’s.⠀⠀⠀⠀
Beyond the Traffic Lights exhibition
Beyond the Traffic Lights - I’ve finally shared some photos and words about my recent exhibition on Yagan Tower, featuring 100-plus portraits taken on our 6-month meander around Western Australia last year.
Lazy Les in Kookynie
Most of the characters I’ve photographed along the way have been discovered after we’ve arrived somewhere. Lazy Les was someone we’d heard about over the years and we had our fingers crossed that he’d be around when we visited gold prospecting friends of ours near Leonora.
Eric adding colour to Cue
Just a couple of kilometres from Cue we started spotting life-size metal cutouts of blue sheep, and red dogs on kayaks. A little further down the road we saw Eric, sporting a crazy hat and obviously trying to get some phone reception, as he paced around his quad bike complete with Aussie flag, proudly fluttering in the wind. I’d barely started asking the question, and Steve was already slowing down to do a U-turn!
Brendan in Cue
Most evenings, Brendan strolls down Cue’s main street, a long, slim case under his arm, to the Murchison Club Hotel. He orders his can of Guinness, sits quietly and waits for someone to challenge to a game of pool. Our first night in Cue, and that someone was Steve.
Tim in Marble Bar
Pretty much everyone we got to know in Marble Bar, we met in the Iron Clad Hotel, including Tim. Like so many people in this outback town, gold is in Tim’s blood. While Tim uses a metal detector his mother Katie used a yandi. Shallow multi-purpose dishes, yandis were traditionally used by Aboriginal women to carry water and bush tucker, but they could also use them to sort chaff from seeds, and in these parts, to separate gold from dirt.
Bushy in Wyndham
A friend to both Pixie and Honest John, Bushy is another Wyndham local adding colour to this small town. Honest John took me to meet Bushy at his home which still shows many signs of its past life as the Post Office.
Wyndham's Honest John
…Welcoming me inside, I was introduced to Elizabeth - the beautiful and fashionable mannequin standing in his kitchen. “I was hoping she’d clean and cook” said Honest John, “But she doesn’t lift a finger.” Elizabeth was a souvenir from his days as “fashion advisor to the ladies of the Kimberley” when he had “a boutique” in downtown Wyndham. One of many businesses he’s owned and operated around the town, from all accounts…
Pixie's Tin Shed in Wyndham
…Physically petite with a big personality, Pixie has that quick witted, dry humoured, fast-tongued way about her that film-goers around the world hoped all outback Aussies would be like back after watching Crocodile Dundee back in the early eighties…
Home schooling with Kamali
I’ve been enjoying catching up with my old friend Kamali while we’ve been in Broome, and so have the children from the #thenomadicsmob - the offspring of musicians Dave Mann and Bec Schofield who are currently up at Kooljaman Resort at Cape Leveque playing beautiful music to holiday makers each night. Here they are on the back of Kamali’s house truck creating with clay - a pretty special art class for these home-schooled kids.
Pancho and friends at K-Town, Exmouth
While we were all having coffee in town one morning, we were introduced to a bloke by the name of Pancho. Pancho had been a prawn boat skipper for MG Kailis back in the day, and had recently written a book about that and a lifetime of other adventures (including a riotous weekend on Rottnest with Bob Hawke before he was PM)…
President of the Old Bastards
It turns out you don’t need to be old to be an Old Bastard. We’d been told that John Wheelock has been the president of Carnarvon’s Old Bastards since its inception in 1982. A quick google revealed that the Australasian Order of the Old Bastards is an Australia-wide organisation, far less organised than the Rotary Club or the Lions, but just as effective where fund-raising is concerned…
Roo shooter Peter in Carnarvon WA
“Karl Brandenberg, Carnarvon’s Shire President, dobbed his mate Peter in as a local, colourful character I ought to photograph. Karl told me that Peter was the roo shooter for the district for years. “He’s a laugh a minute…and tough. Cheeky as they bloody come”…
Senior Citizens Club in Carnarvon WA
A morning spent with the senior citizens in Carnarvon, WA
Growers in Carnarvon
Before any photographs were taken I sat down to enjoy a home-grown mango smoothie and a chat at the kitchen table with Carnarvon grower Rick Skender and his mum, Zarka…
Ray and Merle in Carnarvon
I first met Ray and Merle when I was photographing their granddaughter Jamee-Lee’s wedding about five years ago, and remember thinking that I’d love to do a portrait shoot . I discovered that they lived in Carnarvon and filed that thought away for another day. This week I caught up with them at their home…
John at the Heritage Precinct in Carnarvon
John McCloy originally came to Carnarvon as a teacher for the School of the Air. These days, in retirement, he can be found volunteering at the recently opened Museum down by the One Mile Jetty in Carnarvon’s Heritage Precinct.
Dr Harry in Carnarvon
It seems the whole of Carnarvon knows Dr Harry Sneddon. For many years he was the town’s vet treating creatures great and small. A quietly spoken, gentle man - a gentleman in its truest sense - it’s not hard to imagine him tenderly handling someone’s fur child at his practice in town, or horse whispering out on a cattle station. More recently he’s owned and operated the general store just out of the town centre to keep himself busy in his retirement.