Welcome to the desert…

Another twist of fate prevailed and, due to a sad family event, it was now time to leave Newcastle forever.

Mickey and I decided to pack as many of our belongings as we could into the Pintara I had bought while selling frames and trusses for my dad during university, and cross the country.

Imagine it: a six-month-old baby, a vibrant four-year-old little girl, and a married couple — 25 and 29 years old — madly in love and heading into the unknown.

So, on New Year’s Day, the road trip began.

Driving from Newcastle to Perth.

Mickey, ever the adventure junkie, turned our trip — which for me was layered with deep sadness — into a holiday. We travelled the long way around via the Great Ocean Road.

The car was so jam-packed I could barely even see him. Paris’ dollhouse was wedged between the driver’s and passenger’s seats, and we held hands over the top of it as we drove.

At first, we lived in a family room at a backpackers. If I remember correctly, we had only $100 in our bank account when we arrived in Perth.

I loved it there immediately. Perth felt like a dream come true.

Within weeks, however, we experienced our first major setback. While I was at night class — ironically, photography class — Jimi sustained third-degree burns to his hands due to a faulty oven door. I spent ten days beside him in the burns unit at Princess Margaret Children’s Hospital.

I felt so alone, but I never left my baby’s side.

A few months later, we embarked on another, even bigger adventure.

The Western Australian outback.

Kalgoorlie.

Red dirt, arid landscapes, and extraordinary skies.

I spent many years in and out of the outback — Kalgoorlie twice, Marble Bar, Sandstone, and Leinster.

Death adders, extreme heat, and tank water that made me sick after drinking it.

And yet, it was one of the most inspiring periods of my photography journey.

It was the skies that inspired me most — the clouds, the storms, the red earth.

Perhaps those endless open spaces became a metaphor for life and my career: endless possibilities stretching toward the horizon, a horizon you can walk toward every day and still never reach.

When I think back on it now, I realise how fearless I was.

I would pack the little ones into the car and drive forty minutes out into the middle of nowhere. I discovered an abandoned sheep station with incredible backdrops — rusty shearing sheds, weathered timber fences, and old farm buildings. I would load my camera with black-and-white film and spend hours shooting portraits.

I became hyper-focused on black-and-white film and the way it strips away everything superfluous. I was also obsessed with cross-processing.

I remember one afternoon throwing the children and all my camera gear into the car in blind panic because the sky suddenly turned almost black, cloaked in a dark green haze. A massive storm was charging in.

Hail clouds.

Lightning splintered across the sky as though it were coming from every direction.

Twilight was approaching, and that’s when the kangaroos roam.

I had to drive that station wagon like a bullet fired down a barrel, the storm chasing us from behind. In moments like that, you make a choice: what’s worse — a kangaroo smashing through the windscreen and tearing us to pieces, or hail smashing the car apart, flash flooding trapping us, and Mickey having no idea where we were?

Put the pedal down and pray.

Those outback days were the ultimate adventure.

The ultimate freedom.

And the place where my love for environmental portraiture was born.

A gift.

The image above is a cross-processed double exposure shot in Sandstone, a few kilometres from the sheep yards. It features Paris-Elisabeth — my most generous photography muse and practice subject.

Thank you, Paris.