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ENVOYS OF CHANGE - Darwin Postcard - May 2006 At this time of the year the Darwin air simply 'shimmers' with dragonflies. Their gossamer wings glisten in the cool dry breezes that blow up from the desert country in the south. Dawn and dusk is the best time to see these papery squadrons, dancing weightlessly above the many creeks and streams that are still disgorging the wet season's great fluid mother lode, into the sea. Amongst Darwinites there is a fondness for the humble dragonfly that is almost delusional. Perhaps it's because they serve as envoys of change? Their little wings are like semaphores, announcing the demise of 8 months of stifling heat. As their wings beat faster, the ceiling fans of this tropical city beat slower, those lumbering mechanical blades deferring to the mastery of these 4 winged invertebrates. As I was saying, Darwinites can get delusional about the dragonfly. A friend of mine, Catherine McAlpine was chatting to me recently. “There is a sense of romance when the air is full of dragonflies” she exuded. (almost breathlessly) “When they make love, their bodies form the shape of a love heart. The symbolism is beautiful.” Maybe 'dragonflies' are to Darwinites, what 'dolphins' are to Byron Bay-ites? I was thinking to myself. The subject of this month's feature image I found lying prone and lifeless on my office desk this time last year. He was too exquisite to throw in the wastepaper bin so I picked up his little stiff body and gingerly placed him in an empty C.D. box, not knowing what to do with him and occasionally 'visiting him' throughout the past year. (his head fell off at one stage - but that's another story) The usual life cycle for an adult dragonfly is only about 3 months, but with the sort of ingenuity not seen since Ernest Borgnine's handiwork in 'The Flight of the Phoenix', I have given this fella another lease of life (and many cloned siblings) and now with the press of my SEND button I herby launch him into cyberspace and beyond, …. To go where no dragonfly has gone before. May the force be with him - and also with you!  ODE TO THE WATER - Edith Falls, N.T. - 1st May 2006 There's been an 'aerial tsunami' going on up here over the past few weeks. Rainfall records have been broken, towns tragically flooded and communities' cruelly smashed, by category 5 cyclones and ceaseless waves of tropical rainfall depressions that just keep bucketing the landscape. Some of the greatest theatre is on the infinity of ragged sandstone outcrops such as the Arnhemland Escarpment, and here around the gorges and waterfalls of the Katherine district, which I had the opportunity to witness personally last weekend. The latent energy of rainwater on rocky outcrops is a sight to behold. Great tumults of crystal clear water, all wild and gushing (like my writing) and rendered crazy by earth's gravitational pull, recklessly dashing itself against sun-baked rock. To those water-regulated southerners, whose lifestyles are dictated by government edicts and dual flushing toilets, what can I say? If only you could be Territorians' for a day! To feel the drumming of rain on your rooftops, hear the drunken slosh of flooding drains and ride on inner tubes down brightly flowing creeks. Sure Darwinites are the most profligate water users in Australia - with our bad habits and highly evaporating storage dams, …. But who is counting? Those airborne faucets have been running nonstop for the past few months and nobody knows how to turn them off. Praise be to the God of Water.  THE MAGIC RAIN - Darwin Postcard - March 2006 March is the month when Darwin becomes inundated with water. There are the mighty 8.1 metre high equinox tides in mid March, that sweep in from the Timor Sea and lap menacingly at the heels of this fair northern city. From the sky it is almost as impressive. On a big year, (and 2006 has been one of those) more than 1 metre of water falls from the sky during the month. There are regular Cyclone Watch warnings that urge locals to organise their 'cyclone kits' and media releases from Emergency authorities with such advice as, “I wouldn't relax just yet”. The rainwater really is a magic thing and for most Darwin locals, it is their favourite time of the year. Nine year old Muskie from the suburb of Rapid Creek (which should be called 'Very Rapid Creek' at this time of the year) loves the rain. “It's great fun to play in the rain” explained a soggy Muskie, who was interviewed for the Solness Website last week. “We play 'Stuck in the Mud' after school and run around and do skids and stuff.” One of Muskie's favourite wet season activities is to ride an old inner tube down Rapid Creek during a big downfall, with her Mum Fiona. “It's pretty scarey” she adds. “You have to make sure you don't go all the way down to the saltwater, otherwise the crocs will get you”. Outside my bedroom window a green frog has set up camp inside a stormwater pipe. As soon as the rain comes he/she explodes into a froggy aria, amplified by 5 metres of PVC pipe, into what at best can be described as a very punishing solo baritone performance. I respond with Phantom of the Opera on the CD player at full volume. It's a very theatrical time of the year here in Darwin.  In the Footsteps of Paul Foelsche In the March 28th edition of the Bulletin I had a portrait published of Aboriginal prisoner John Shelvey Kurungaiyi to illustrate an article by journalist Paul Toohey called, 'Way of the Warrior'. Photographing Aboriginal 'criminals' has been a long tradition in the Northern Territory. It began with people like Paul Foelsche in the 1870's. Foelsche, the first N.T. Inspector of Police was also an extraordinarily dedicated photographer and his records of early colonial life are priceless. His broad range of images included Portraits, Darwin Streetscapes and Pictorial Views in surrounding areas, all produced on time consuming Wet-plate glass negatives developed from the back of a horse-drawn wagon. Foelsche's criminal portraits included one of Wandy Wandy, an Iwaidja man convicted of manslaughter in 1879 for avenging the murder of one of his tribesmen. It was also noted that Aboriginal prisoners outnumbered that of Europeans in Palmerston Gaol from the outset of the colony. Funny that. When I went to Berrimah Gaol for the Bulletin portrait of Kurangaiyi nothing has changed in 125 years. The gaol population was overwhelmingly Aboriginal yet Aborigines make up about 29% of the Territory population. And as for Kurangaiyi ? Well like Wandy Wandy he's in gaol for a violent incident in June last year, where he was 'looking after his own people'. “We got to look after each other, protect ourselves”. Said the man who is profiled in the Bulletin interview as arguably the most imposing tribal Aborigine in the country.  Nightcliff Surfer - Darwin Postcard - February 2006 The surf only breaks at my local beach in suburban Darwin once or perhaps twice a year. The famous surfing film, The Endless Summer had that classic retort 'Oh you should have been here yesterday' but at Nightcliff it's a case of 'You should have been here on March 22nd 2004.' That's the last time I've seen the surf break. The other issue is that the sea here has deadly stingers and crocodiles throughout much of the year. Along with boardwax and a towel, surfers carry a 2 litre bottle of vinegar in their surf gear to flush off deadly stings. Tired of waiting any longer to photograph the surf, I summonsed a mate of mine Ken Dyer, to do a bit of night surfing. He rose to the challenge.  On the Road with Deb and Cath - 2005 One of the best trips of 2005 was to drop in on an SBS Film Crew for a few weeks and document the journey of Deborah Mailman and Cathy Freeman, (two Australian legends of sport and screen) doing a kind of rite-of-passage adventure through culturally significant Aboriginal sites across northern Australia. The emphasis being that you can learn a lot on such trips, but that doesn't mean it can't also be a lot of fun. They travelled from Broome to N.E. Arnhemland to present the T.V. documentary, 'Going Bush', which was screened on SBS during February 2006. A book of the same title, (which is where I came in) was published by Lonely Planet. Buy it from Dymocks - $34.95. It features Indigenous experiences from all over Australia. Deb and Cath are really great women. The opportunity to share some time around the fire at night under the stars and hear their personal stories was a real privilege. Here I am trying to absorb some of their amazing 'x-factor' by cuddling up to them. Sometimes ordinary people can assume a certain social cache and charisma, by associating with genuinely charismatic people. Well I tried that theory here. You be the judge. ( I know. I still look like Russell Coight)  Yolgnu Boys doing impromptu concert One morning we woke to the primal sounds of the didgeridoo (spelt Yidaki in Yolgnu tongue). I grabbed my camera and caught this scene of local boys at a dreamlike piece of Australian coastline on the tip of N.E. Arnhemland, on the shores of Port Bradshaw, known as Bawaka. This is the sort of place that has inspired many a visiting 'Balanda' (white man). Neil Murray, one of Australia's finest singer/songwriters wrote 'My Island Home' about a place like this. 'And I'm feeling close now, to where it must be. My Island Home, is waiting for me.' Yirrkala resident Timmy Burarrwanga runs Bawaka Cultural Tours - ph: 0437 387 135.  I love witnessing the bush at night in its many guises. Here there is a full moon rising and the trees on this piece of scrub in central Arnhemland are glowing from the light of a local grass fire. This is such great theatre and something most urban Australian's will never experience.  Ghost Stories on the Barkly Tablelands - 2005 In late 2005 my attention was turned to the issue of 'Ghosts' that were said to inhabit the treeless plains of the Barkly Tablelands, about 700 kilometres south-east of Darwin. Journalist Paul Toohey came along and wrote the definitive piece, 'Beasts of Barkly' on this isolated part of Australia, with its numerous unexplained phenomena. The story was published in the Summer Reading Edition of the Bulletin magazine. The feature explained such notorious events as the legendary 'Min Min' light - a phenomena known for its terrifyingly magical properties - where outback motorists are followed by beams of light at night that have no clear origin. This is scientifically explained as the 'Fata Morgana' effect. But enough of the science - this is a photographer's website so lets get arty. I Googled 'Ghost Photography' on the internet. I wanted to learn know how to take a good ghost photo. According to 'ghoststudy.com you need to look for stuff called 'Ectoplasm'. You also are advised to talk politely to the ghost, don't smoke and don't get your camera strap in the photo - as you'll mistake it for an 'Orb'. Well my theory for good ghost photography is a bit more rudimentary than that. Just go bush in the 4WD and set up camp in some godforsaken bit of scrub with a mate (preferable one who is a little psychopathic). Light a fire, have a few beers, then tell a few murder stories to scare the 'S' out of each other. Now start playing with whatever you can find lying around in the scrub. In this case it was a cow skull. Use available firelight or a torch beam, to evoke the appropriate mood and see how spooked you can get.  The Keeper of the Headless Horseman Story J. R. (pictured) is an Aboriginal Roadtrain driver on the Barkly Tablelands in the N.T. He has a story about a 'Headless Horseman' who rides the treeless plains in this part of the world on a grey horse. The story goes that a boundary rider was checking fencing once when he came across a wire strung between two posts. 'It ripped his head clean orf' reckons J.R. The ghost is known to appear late at night at lonely Gate 41 on Soudan Station. According to J.R. 'He'll come up to you at the gate with his head under his arm. The head says, 'you gotta a smoke mate?' There are quite a few ghosts around here according to J.R. 'They just paralyse you. It's like you go dead, you go real cold. You can see 'em, but you can't do nothing'  credits | photos | cont@ct | current projects | illuminated landscape | curriculum vitae | home |