March 25, 2021, The Port, Wyndham. East Kimberley.

Photographer's Block

April 12, 2021 in behind the scenes, the kimberley, journal, backstory

One morning in early March, I was in the shop paying for some fuel when a local asked me, ‘you been taking many photos this wet?’

“I was thinking this the other day’ I said. ‘I’ve probably been out with the camera about twice’

“Twice! With the wet we’ve had!”

Admittedly it has been a great wet. Overcast skies, big weather systems, creeks flooding, the land green and thriving.

***

My lack of photography however, was due to being in more a creative lull. For the last three months of 2020, I was on a run. Ideas were firing, shooting multiple shots a week for months at a time. However, after returning after the holidays I couldn’t pick it up where I’d left off. The creative process had seized.

I sat with it though, because there’s always other things do rather than continuous shooting. I did some online workshops and edited and scanned much of my new work. But at the same time I was thinking how there is a fine balance between being inspired and coercing that creativity. So, even when I wasn’t feeling it I would pack my bag in its Tetris like fashion, go out, find a spot, set up the camera but at the very moment when I was ‘meant’ to release the shutter, I hesitated and when through the process of packing it all up. My vision was off and I couldn’t translate what I wanted to say / see to the viewfinder.

And the reason was this. The photos were starting to be repetitive and I wasn’t challenging myself.

I know where the fix lies and where I’ll focus this years’ efforts.

So while it’s been one the biggest wet seasons in years, I hardly put a lens to it.

Crocodile Journal II

December 11, 2020 in behind the scenes, about the image, backstory, the kimberley

After the first walk out looking for crocodiles which you can read about here, I told K about it when I got home and showed her some of the photographs from that day.

‘That’s what scares me Steve’ she said scrolling through the lightroom folder with both a mixture of excitement and disbelief.

‘Didn’t I say that they could be lying there, up high, ready to rush down?’

It wasn’t addressed as an accusation but more of a valid concern.

“I know, I know. But we were vigilant the whole time. Promise you.”

Two weeks later, on a Sunday afternoon, I returned with K who wanted to see them. Driving out from the spot on that first visit I was surprised how close the creek was to the main road since we entered from a different, and much longer direction. Going back I roughly knew that area but it took several drives down dirt tracks until we stopped at the top of a dry creek and made the rest of the way on foot.

The first part of the walk in the creek was wide and with good visibility. We kept in the middle, away from the steep left bank and followed the hoof marks down the creek bed which was about the width of a one lane road. About half way in, the sides narrowed, the overhanging tree from both banks m closed in and caused the light levels to drop slightly . We both paused, looked at each other for confirmation and walked in wordlessly. The body and the smell of a dead cow felt ominous as we walked out of our comfort zone, every step made with caution.

The area looked familiar but I still wasn’t sure if this was it. It was like experiencing deja-vu where you’re mind is scrambling for the familiar within the new. However, to the right there was a clearing in the trees which I approached and looked at from different angles, trying to trigger a memory of my previous photographic compositions. Now I was 99% sure this was it and if so, that croc had moved.

Afterwards, I walked down to what was a muddy puddle two weeks before but now had completely dried up. It’s incredible how quickly the landscape can change in a such short amount of time. All that remained were the remnants of the female that was lying here, her movements captured in the mud. You can see where it’s stomach had made impressions and the tracks from where it has left and entered the water.

Then I heard K call.

‘Steve get up here now. There’s a crocodile in those trees up here.’

I ran up and it took my eyes a while to adjust until I saw it, lying on it’s belly, legs flayed out, tail curled around itself in amongst the trees. This was the one from the previous week, in a new spot not even 30metres away. You could actually follow the track it created through the trees. We spent some time looking at it, in awe of it really. This was a saltwater crocodile, in the shade of the trees, protecting itself from the hard sun and waiting for the rain. We wondered if it was dead, because it didn’t move at all. If it was, flies and the smell would have been the big giveaway.

I was thinking one thing only which was to run back and get the camera. Series wise, this felt like one of the moments that I would be unrepeatable and since I wanted to move away from photos showing the impact we have had on the land, this was an ideal shot; one that was rare and completely blew my understanding of what crocodiles how they behave. I thought it may chase us off, or show some aggression but it just lay there. However, it looked completely vulnerable which is how I wanted to photograph it.

Crocodile in the trees, Ebony 45SU, Schneider 210mm, Ilford 400.

Before posting this blog, I showed this photo to a local man from the area.

“That’s pretending to be dead Steve”

He backed up from the screen and stood in the empty frame of the doorway talking to me with a serious look in his eye.

“That's hiding in the trees, waiting for something like cattle, or even you to walk past it. It wants you to thinks it dead, wants you to get close and boy it’ll grab you”

He came back to the computer screen.

“Look at it’s eye Steve!”

He returned to the door frame.

“He was watching and listening to everything you were doing. They’re super smart and so when I go out camping, walking around collecting firewood for example I’m always looking because there could be one in the trees. Like that one, right there.”

Crocodile Journal I

November 12, 2020 in behind the scenes, the kimberley

A few weeks ago I went for a walk with two locals to take photographs of some saltwater crocodiles in a dried out creek system out of town. Turning off the the main road and then left off a faint, almost indiscernible track, we drove for about half an hour through some hard bush into some low lying dried out flood plains, a short grassed, black soil landscape that was lined with a variety of trees. After a rough drive, we stopped at the top of a dried out creek and headed into the body of it, the steepness of the banks carrying our momentum in as we walked in.

Creeks are temporal water systems that flow during the several months of the wet season, which we are just on the brink of beginning. Once flowing, these creeks connect with all the others in the area, connecting like a nervous system and giving new energy and life to the landscape. We immediately came across the carcass of a cow, the rotten, overpowering smell introducing us to the area as we followed the fossilized hoof marks in the cracked mud from the cattle which moved through this area when the creek was still wet.

The day was overcast, which gave welcome respite from the intense 40 degree days we have been experiencing. The diffused light enriched the tired green and brown pallor of the land, an environment that is calling for rain. We walked past the trees that towered above us in the dried out banks, where the roots systems are at head height and completely exposed, giving an insight into the croc’s underwater domain when this creek is at full capacity.

Within seconds and a short way up ahead, I saw movement off the bank and into the area we were headed. I felt safe however, since R is experienced with this. For someone who has worked with crocs he isn’t what the stereotype might suggest; the gung-ho, risk taking Aussie wrangler. He’s quiet, softly spoken and you can tell he is respectful of the environment and the animals here. He’s knowledgeable with it too and has an incredible ear for bird songs and he can differentiate species from the slightest variations in their calls. He walked ahead and when we saw the croc move off the bank, I thought that I might, for safety sake, keep to higher ground and make my way slowly along. Which doesn’t make sense as I write this because I was effectively walking in the area where it just was. But the visibility was good; like an English park in winter where the wind has cleared the leaves from the ground. I just had to my mindful and alert. R was ahead in the creek, about 20m or so ahead of me and calls out calmly “there’s a big male up ahead, in the trees, in front of you.”

I paused, looking ahead to where he was suggesting. My pace slowed but I couldn’t see where he meant so I went down to R and within 20 seconds, I saw it; a pristine male fully outstretched in the small clearing of trees, protected in the shade. I was amazed how much it blended into it’s environment, it’s grey green body camouflaged into the arid brown banks of the clearing in the trees. I mean you wouldn’t trip over it as such, but it would take your eyes a while to adjust to believe what you were seeing because it seemed so out of context.

Also, what amazed me was how it didn’t move. Not once. Even getting within 10m this animal was docile, the most it moved was its eyes a little wider. It just lay there, in the shade of the banks of some trees, waiting for the rains that bring the water to connect all these disparate creeks together, which bring the fish from the main arterial river about 1km away.

Overall, we spent about 6 hours in different areas that day, seeing young crocs in algae covered pools and to complete the circle we found the skull of a dead male croc embedded in the mud.

East Kimberley

July 21, 2018 in backstory, behind the scenes, the kimberley

I recently spent some time in the East Kimberley delivering some photography workshops. Due to the fact I was working with young people I am unable to share those images online. However, here’s a few behind the scenes shots and impressions from Wyndham that I have compiled into this short clip.

Short series of stills photographs compiled in Adobe Premiere with audio.