Category: digital
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The camel trek solution
I found the solution to my predicament about how I could photograph in northern South Australia. I could do a camel trek with experienced cameliers. The camels would carry the swag, food and water, we would do the walking and the cameleers would guide us through the remote, semi-arid landscape. So we booked a 12…
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re-assessing
I realized when I was at Karlu Karlu in 2016 hat I found the country in the northern part of South Australia (ie., north of Port Augusta) that we had passed through on the way to and from Lajamanu to be as interesting as the destination itself. I realized that wanted to explore this country rather than travel…
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Milpirri portraits
Photographing people was very different at Lajamanu during Milpirri that it is in Australian cities. Many of the young Milpirri wanted to have their photos taken, and they often presented themselves in front of the camera. Then they would ask their friends to be part of their performance. Often they would direct in…
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Hooker Creek
Whilst I was at Lajamanu I would sleep in a swag on the verandah of the Learning Centre, rise before dawn, quickly dress, then walk around the township taking photos before the early morning light became too bright. I usually ended up in the Hooker Creek area and wandering along the dry river bed as…
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the heavy weight of the past
The common interpretation of the frontier wars between settler Australia and the Aboriginal people is that this history is a case of a doomed hunter-gatherer people unable to withstand the agriculture, animal husbandry and machinery of modern capitalism. This downplays the history of the killing phases, segregation-by-incarceration phases, assimilation or absorption- to-the-point-of-disappearance phases, and the erasure-of-their- presence…
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landscape, Tanami Desert
Late one afternoon whilst I was at Lajamanu I went on a brief phototrip with Helga Leunig to take photos of the Tanami Desert landscape. We travelled a short distance along the gravel road that provides access to the local cemetery and rubbish dump. This road north from Lajamanu, which connects Lajamanu to the Bunting…
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The Tanami + the Frontier wars
After meeting up with friends in a very green Alice Springs we set out on the 15 hour drive along the Tamani Road in Warlpiri country to Lajamanu. The history of this landscape is that of the Frontier wars involving a series of conflicts over 140 years (1788 to 1934) that were fought between Indigenous Australians and mainly…
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before and after Port Augusta
The landscape just south of Port Augusta (ie., after Port Pirie ) is quite different to the landscape north of Port Augusta on the way to Woomera. It is a study in contrasts: farmland and desert.
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on the Goyder Highway
Since the stops to take photos would be few and far between due to time constraints, I choose to sit in the back of the LandRover Discovery on the Mildura to Pimba leg of our road trip to Lajamanu. It was going to be traveling all day with an occasional stop. I sat in the…
The Long Road to the North 