Join us in celebrating our brilliant photographers who worked on assignments far and wide across our vast country this year.
Hundreds of images were uploaded, and as I went through the photographs being printed, I found myself in the whole of work and the world with new eyes and new forms.
In this annual round-up I’ve resurrected photos that, for whatever reason, were consigned to the ‘cutting room floor’. Looking and interpreting photos isn’t a static process, and in this curation we circle back to some of the fantastic images that didn’t fit initially.
These are photographs that tell stories in new, shocking and original ways. But the selected photographs have the context of the story in the magazine, the visual tone of the pages and the content that advances or follows the story. In the story itself, we think about how the photographs set the tone or rhythm of the work.
We intentionally associate photographers with assignments, their interests, strengths, and connection to certain subjects or proximity to places.
It was decided that Matthew Bagley would photograph giant cuttlefish at his annual collection in Whyalla, South Australia, for our September-October virtual policy (AG 176). Matthew was on our radar because his painting was exhibited to the world as part of Ami Vitale’s hard work. Vital Impacts Global Initiative in 2022 (see my story here). Matthew’s unique underwater paintings have been identified in photography competitions, in addition to ours, so we know his artistic technique of using natural light to photograph underwater life.
Dean Sewell spent more than 10 years researching, preparing, and finding relationships with his story about desert navigation (AG 173). His interest in the Lake Eyre Basin and the Australian outback stems from his 25 years of documenting the Murray-Darling Basin. .
Thomas Wielecki’s immersion in automobile culture made him an apparent choice for a road on the former Hume Highway (AG 173).
Trent Mitchell is noted for his sense of Australian quirks, and when we think of a story about Australia’s big things (AG 178), I immediately imagine Trent’s work beyond the big things, as part of his Australian Lustre task: a 15-year assignment. A love letter to the curiosities of regional Australia.
We were lucky to have adventure photographer Krystle Wright stop by ACT when we needed photographs of Miles Franklin’s former playground, Brindabellas.
Mark Clinton, known for his excessive sports photography, is comfortable creating photographs in blizzards on mountain ranges, in ash storms near active volcanoes, or under huge ocean waves. Familiar with the use of weatherproof lenses in high-risk situations and unpredictable environments in rural areas. , Mark proved to be the best photographer to adhere to the Australian Geographical Society’s 2023 Young Adventurer of the Year award, Lewi Taylor, while climbing the most remote of Tasmania’s remote peaks in the dead of winter.
Tamati Smith, a Yama(t)ji and Māori from Geraldton, Washington, tasked with filming the latest installment of our Listening to the Voices series. He had been mentored by famed indigenous photographer Michael Jalaru Torres, founder of Blak Lens, and Tamati already knew Marcia Langton because she was photographing the Garma Festival, which made it easy for him to create the right connection for his photo shoot with her.
Tajette O’Halloran photographed our accidental activist report (AG 172) with a deep experience of this kind of life after growing up in an ecological “hippie” network in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales.
Richard Freeman works with the educational studies sector documenting the history of herbs and environmental science on box trips, such as our platypus reconstruction task (AG 177) and has carved out a niche for himself in ecological documentary photography.
Other photographers such as Annette Ruzicka (AG 174), Don Fuchs (AG 176), and Cathy Finch (AG 176) brought us their complete stories, generating the concept of researching, writing, and photographing reportage, which gives those stories a specific meaning. synergy.
We also featured the photography of our former Editor-in-Chief Chrissie Goldrick, who moved into the position of Chair of the Australian Geographic Society after starting at the magazine as Photo Editor more than 20 years ago. In her final issue this year she paddled down the mighty Murray River. (AG 174).
Eddie Ablett‘s Home of the Kelpies cover shoot (photos below). Eddie proved to be the perfect photographer to shoot our June-July cover. He makes his living shooting for big agricultural companies, spending months at a time on stations in Australia’s Top End, or for similar operations in Canada.
Dean Sewell first heard about sailing in Australia’s arid regions in 2011, when the Lake Eyre Yacht Club hosted a regatta at a Birdsville Track domain in South Australia that was flooded due to flooding from the swollen Cooper Creek. Back at Australian Geographic, he met members of some of them up to 2,000 kilometres from the Australian coast to compete in bodies of water that may no longer exist in six months’ time.
Dean found himself dragging boats across sand dunes in search of water. Sailing in the desert, he says, is a very different experience than sailing in the ocean, with the shadows of the wind coming from the dunes creating spaces of calm and, at other times, the dunes created huge wind funnels that forced ships to take off like jet planes.
“Networking and keeping it alive over the years is an integral component of this type of documentary work,” says Dean. “Little by little, story after story, I am deepening my wisdom and that of Australia’s river systems. “
Matthew Newton, one of Australia’s foremost documentary photographers dealing with social and environmental issues (see my story here about the change brought about by his work), told us the story of the war to save Tasmania’s eucalyptus, the most endangered, called weeping trees or apple cider gum, which exudes a sweet sap that makes the surrounding domain smell like a brewery.
Matthew photographed some of the remaining 8 small trees and also took stunning photographs of the bleached skeletons of the dead trees. Since then, he has spent months expanding the story of the weeping tree into a documentary series that will air in the new year on AG. canals.
Mark Clinton’s athleticism and agility matched the enthusiasm and strength of young adventurer and consultant Lewi Taylor as he glided through the most challenging landscapes and treacherous peaks of Tasmania’s South West Wild National Park in the dead of winter. Mark spent a week camping in extreme conditions. maximum altitude, snow, and wind: to capture the images of our canopy story about the small organization of other people who climbed the 158 mountains collectively known as the Abels.
A giant cuttlefish can be up to a meter long, have 3 hearts, a huge brain, blue blood, and glow in the dark when excited. The aggregation of cuttlefish off the coast of Whyalla, South Australia, has attracted repeat visits in recent years. of the world’s most productive wildlife photographers. With our social media channels flooded with images of the winter marine spectacle (their breeding season), we were looking for a photographer who could photograph these magnificent animals in a more stylized way.
Matt Bagley is taking wildlife photography to new realms of choice with Palx, a photo capture and editing procedure rarely used in photography. In our images above, he uses this cutting-edge generation to create a three-dimensional map that allows the eye to move. around the subject, giving a three-dimensional perspective.
Lewis Burnett, better known through his pen name @huntingforparadise, has won accolades for his underwater photography off the west coast of Australia, adding our own Nature Portfolio award in 2023. Lewis is part of a cohort of well-known freediving photographers (adding Brooke Pyke, Alek Kydd and former Australian wildlife photographer of the year Ashleigh Jenson) who spend seasons at Ningaloo Reef racing on excursion boats.
For our story on the Coral Coast, we needed a photographer who was used to photographing underwater life, but who was equally savvy at photographing wildlife above ground and who enjoyed capturing vast landscapes from the air. With a degree in applied geology and experience as an adventure. and wildlife guide, Lewis was especially appreciative of the landscapes. Although he’s known for his stunning drone imagery, for our story, Lewis captured those landscapes from a fixed-wing aircraft, eschewing the dynamic diversity constraints of drone cameras.
Max Mason-Hubers followed the ghosts of the “gun packers” who, in centuries past, drove thousands of horses, mules and oxen in search of valuable metals through the outback west of Cairns. These early fortune seekers pushed back the boundaries of the agreement from 1872 onward, and we trace their tracks on a donkey ride. Max traveled 90 km along the original packing route, passing wild swimming spots and now-abandoned ghost towns. . . all off the grid and with truculent donkeys to handle. He was tasked with documenting an organization in a state of constant forward motion, where much of the action took place in the middle of the day, when the light is flat and lifeless.
Remember that the days were long and very physical, starting well before dawn to tend to the donkeys and leave everything in condition for the mid-morning outings. There were trips and falls as most of the hikes were on steep trails and slippery trails and two members of the organization were evacuated.
The donkeys themselves presented a number of other challenges; They were cursed and started pushing other people as the week progressed. Max was forced to put away his camera to take the reins and give the others a break. He said: “I quickly learned that donkeys were frightened by a drone, so it had to be used with wonderful caution, because I had already noticed them running after being frightened by a sudden movement: I even had a hard time scaring them when I went there. off the trail to take a photo of your passing.
One reader said that Max had “a wonderful idea of the mood of the moment: the last light reflected off the water and the water collector, with the night campfire as a backdrop; the way Tim Daniel fed Mr. Chips reminds me of Streeton School paintings. . Thanks, Max, just pictures but experience.
Trent Mitchell has spent years traveling around the region of Australia and documenting the quirky attractions along the way. “Indirectly, I ended up creating an archive of road quirks along the way, simply for the sake of my dry sense of humor. “Undeniable and fun no matter how fun it is: creating lighthearted images of our unique inanimate items on the roadside. Trent started on the East Coast, with the Big Banana first on the list. “The banana scares me: it’s so iconic and advertising that it’s blocked my creativity in the past. Rethinking my technique allowed me to take successful photographs of this extra-giant old fruit. Photographing other big things was easier. ” Minutes after approaching the giant koala, a caravan from Windsor pulled up right in front of him with a giant sun-bleached sticker taped to the back that read, “House among the Gumtrees. “of the holidays at its finest.
Trent finished the assignment with a very unexpected big thing – the big Hills Hoist (washing line) in Adelaide. “I’m not sure how I ever heard about it. It’s on the lawn in front of a steelworks factory that supposedly fabricated the pipe for making the original Hills back in the day. I love a good Hills Hoist and I have a nice archive of them from around Australia. Adding the Big Hills Hoist into my collection as the very last thing to photograph was icing on my big things cake and a very fitting way to end a fun series of Australian iconic things.”
Environmental Activists come from all walks of life. Tajette O’Halloran visited a farmer, surfer and miner for our story, but our favourite photos came out of her meeting with former miner Scott Jordan who now campaigns to save the Tarkine for the Bob Brown Foundation.
We called Finlay late on a Wednesday and on Friday he was 800 miles away in a booty in the village of Walpole in the southwestern region of Washington state. Even though Finlay was in the third week of an Efudix remedy with an inflammation and burn face and couldn’t venture outdoors without his face completely covered by the sun, he drove five hours in the afternoon to be informed about the opposing salinity of the rivers, First Nations history, and be there to observe the rare flora and fauna.
Finlay, a Scot who moved from New York to Perth during the COVID-19 pandemic, was used to photographing sports stars and celebrities. Yet on this job, there was more excitment around a rare sunset frog in the peat bogs of South West Australia than a celebrity on set in NYC. In the photo above, Finlay captures the moment Professor Pierre Horwitz captured a Gondwanan relic, a salamanderfish, the first time it’s been seen in the region for 50 years. He also nailed a holy grail of a photo – the sunset frog, a new species Pierre discovered back in 1994.
Annette Ruzicka began her career as a photographer after a career in communications for the charity Bush Heritage. Therefore, she is used to working intensively with journalists. He says he “learned on the job precisely what it takes to create a story and how to interpret it. “in a national context and show why we care. “
Annette’s history of wetlands was broad and spanned several states. Through her extensive network of contacts, she organized all the logistics and access, cold-called some caregivers, and built pre-existing relationships with others, such as Gayini’s, where she focused on First United Nations Territorial Management. Although the abundant wildlife and open landscapes provided the perfect visual material, Annette says her time in Kakadu alarmed her because she found it “unsettling to witness the dramatic effect of sea level rise on wetlands. “
Francesco comes from a photojournalism background in Italy, where he worked for La Repubblica. This story about Australia’s Kelpie heritage, originating from the Warrock Station Patrimonial Pastoral Assets near Casterton, was his second assignment for us. (The first, in 2022, covered the clash between climbers and classic owners in the Grampians National Park. ) As a member of the climbing network and an experienced hiker in the domain we were covering, Francesco was a simple choice for the Grampians’ mission. This time, however, he had two- a one-week-old baby, forecast of incessant rain, and yet he was content to head out in his 4×4 with his tent down a relaxed road. Once in the field, he photographed far beyond his anticipation, photographing any and all conceivable angles and perspectives, looking for new subjects and twists in the story.
Broughton Island, located 14 km north-east of Port Stephens off the NSW coast, presents almost as a Mediterranean paradise, but the assignment proved less pleasant. Ocean conditions meant Max’s time was cut short on the island and catching good light at important locations was a matter of strategy and luck. Much of the island is a shearwater nesting ground; these birds create nests in burrows in the sandy soil which would collapse when walked over, and the team would need to dig out burrows to rescue their occupants. Adding to the physical challenge Max found many of the sites significant to the story involved pushing through tangles of vines and vast swathes of invasive prickly pair cactus. “I came home with cactus spines embedded in every single part of me from my face to the palms of my hands to between my toes!”
As she set out to photograph Marcia Langton for our article on why Voice in Parliament would help bridge the gap, Tamati recalled the photographs of U. S. presidents most candidly photographed in the Oval Office. It reminds us of the intimate portrait of President Kennedy taken through Look. Magazine photographer Stanley Tretick in 1963, with his young son under his desk. Here, in this picture, though darkened in the darkness beneath the desk, Marcia’s dog is playing.
Very few platypuses are photographed in the wild. They are shy, nocturnal, fast, and incredibly well camouflaged. Richard was determined to take a split photo, a symbol above the water, of a playpus, but he underestimated how complicated it would be. If he entered the water, he would scare away the platypus before his capture was complete, but on the last night of the four-day box with UNSW researchers Dr Gilad Bino and Dr Tahneal Hawke, he did a split take. in the pouring rain (above right) as researchers released one of the platypuses captured in the Snowy Mountains region of New South Wales.
We’ve worked with Thomas Wielecki more than any other photographer this year. Thomas constantly makes up stories; With each mission, it comes out of the box full of new ideas. He describes himself as shy, but with a camera around his neck, Thomas is able to ask other people as many non-public questions as possible and has a knack for posing by putting himself in other people’s shoes.
Even though we often send Thomas to photograph destinations (such as Mildura), epic journeys (the Old Hume Highway) or big events (the Pacific Airshow in the January-February issue) we regard him as a gifted character photographer, and someone who is interested in the private stories and personal lives of everyday people.
The Pacific Airshow assignment, for example, was a story Thomas brought to us. Aside from the visual spectacle of an airshow above crowded beaches and around tall buildings on the Gold Coast instead of the usual airshow setting of an aerodrome, Thomas liked the angle that this was an airshow in which anyone with passion could fly. He tracked down a group of enthusiasts, ‘The Freedom Flyers’ who built their own planes in sheds, backyards and garages to fly in group formation in the show alongside the world’s best stunt pilots and military jets. These characters, ordinary people with an extraordinary goal to fly in Australia’s biggest airshows, were more interesting to Thomas than the planes. Sometimes, he says, “it’s necessary to see the small story in order to understand the bigger picture.”
Giacomo d’Angelo traveling through the Kimberley region of Washington State in his caravan between missions for the Mindaroo Foundation, when we were looking for a photographer to document reports of indigenous tourism for a story about the abandonment of the Broome Hotel “flop and drop”. . travel’.
We’ve introduced our new Australian Portrait slot, profiles of ‘ordinary Australians doing ordinary things’, starring brilliant physicist Matthew Bailes. The editor began his profile by recalling the memory of Matthew, a 6-year-old boy who looks like Glynburn Road in Adelaide, looking at cars and wondering why he might see them.
We wanted to create a visual connection between the brilliant astrophysicist, now based in Melbourne, and the curious child that he was. Photographer Randy Larcombe locked in the scientist as he was transiting through Adelaide, to be able to capture Matthew playfully returning to the very same corner where he stood as a child of six.
Krystle Wright, an adventure photographer who this month was awarded $300,000 in the world’s richest photo competition, lived much of the year travelling Australia in her van. We were were lucky to catch her passing through the ACT for our visit to the childhood home of Australian writer Miles Franklin, author of My Brilliant Career. Franklin was also the author of the very successful and award-winning All That Swagger, a book that mirrors her own family story and childhood spent exploring a mountain holding very much like the Brindabellas. Writer Matthew Higgins says there is a mysticism inherent in the mountain environment in the book, and Krystle captures this beautifully above as the mist lingers of the Goodradigbee River in the Brindabella Valley.
Cathy examines the successes of an Australian-led conservation effort in Lombok, Indonesia, involving shark fishing with tourism.
Don Fuchs has a long history with Australian Photographic, photographing and writing stories for us since 1996. During that time, he covered everything from the gruelling 30kg Carnarvon Great Walk to a shapeless, overgrown track to the South Coast Track. in Tasmania, where I was in mud up to my hips, for our e-book on walking in Tasmania. Don has won our “tough guy missions,” however, this year he turned his attention to the growing popularity of trails and hikes as a healing journey. In his story A Journey of Faith, Don explores the healing effects of long-distance walking and how a path is different from an undeniable hike.
In addition to editing the journal and managing the Australian Geographic Society, Chrissie managed to fit in writing and photographing a kayaking adventure along the mighty Murray, and an expedition to the Galapagos Islands
Nina White chose to document the grueling journey through the thick rainforest to the wreckage of the Stinson plane in Lamington National Park because of her mythical tenacity and physical endurance. She also lived close to the place, so she was willing to go back and return in other climates. situations to get the right photographs.
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