Australian Geographic – July-August 2019

The Milky Way, almost invisible to the

naked eye in the night sky, miraculously

looms out of my photos.

The Milky Way, almost invisible to the naked eye in the

night sky, looms miraculously out of my photos when I down-

load them the next morning and I’m thrilled to have acquired

a new skill.

Our cohort of shutterbugs hail from all corners of Australia

and all walks of life. They’re united by a love of photography

and the wild places it can take them and they all cherish the

opportunity to travel with like-minded souls.

Heather Rose from Vermont in Victoria is a regular at

Canon Collective’s one-day workshops in Melbourne with

Jay Collier, but it’s her first trip away with the project. “Every

time I work with Jay I learn something new,” she says. “He

has a knack of figuring out exactly where people are at with

their photography. He’s not intrusive and is always able to

teach me something new.” Heather is an experienced aerial

photographer, but this year Lake Eyre is something special. “It’s

a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the lake the way it is at

the moment. I love the abstract nature of what you can see in

there and what others can see in your images of it.”

O

NOFRIO DESERIO from Pascoe Vale in Victoria is a

keen birdwatcher and it’s that passion that has brought

him to photography. “The natural extension of iden-

tifying birds is to record them with a camera” he says.

There aren’t too many birds to shoot in this arid region of

SA so I ask him what drew him to photograph here. “I needed

to do more than shoot 2-inch-high birds and I wanted to try

my hand at this kind of landscape photography,” he says. “It has

been amazing to see Lake Eyre as this great ocean, like an inland

sea.” For Onofrio, one of the highlights has been the contrast

between the surrounding desiccated desert and the life-giving

waters with their promise of new growth.

“It’s so difficult to capture because it’s so large,” he says of

photographing the lake. “Even the widest-angle lens has a tighter

perspective than the human eye, so I decided not to take photos

all the time but to look with my own eyes and take in the abstract

shapes and patterns. I hope I have also captured that in my photos.”

We bookend our stay at William Creek with one final f light

back over the Painted Hills in the f leeting dawn light. I set up

both cameras in the way I’ve been taught and snap furiously

away while I’m ‘on the door’. But the rest of the time I decide

to follow Onofrio’s example and simply gaze out through the

perspex window to try to absorb the beauty and power of a

landscape that few will ever get to experience.

It gives me time to ref lect on the true magic of photography

as a pastime or a profession – of its ability to take us to places

off the beaten track and encourage us to really look closely to

identify and capture the beauty in any scene and, hopefully,

communicate that beauty to others.

The bar of the William Creek Hotel is dutifully

attended by Nicolas Sommerho

 Croquevielle,

whom everyone knows as ‘Nico’.

The colours of the Painted Hills are the result

of oxidised iron and sulfur leaching through the

weathering sandstone.

AG

The Milky Way captured

above one of the Pinnacles’

eroded rocky stacks in the

Painted Hills.

CHRISSIE GOLDRICK travelled courtesy of Canon and

Canon Collective.

112 Australian Geographic