Right place, right time and a whole lot of trial and error. That’s the secret to capturing great shots, according to the photographers who take the images for this magazine and our annual calendar and diary.
Photo Ben Goode
Our contributors cover the length and breadth of the country on trips to some truly amazing places. Just getting there takes time and organisation, but most professionals agree that even meticulous planning doesn’t guarantee great results. The weather can be fickle, road conditions can make travel times unpredictable and it takes skill and experience to get the job done when conditions aren’t ideal.
Ben Goode, however, made the most of the golden hour of sunset for his shot of the sun sinking through trees on Kangaroo Island while Ken Eastwood used the soft light of dawn for his study of poached egg daisies in the Red Centre. Patience pays off for wildlife photographer Charles Davis, who sometimes spends days, if not weeks, waiting for the precise moment to capture, for example, an emu strolling across a dune.
A former geologist, Mandy McKeesick fell in love with deserts when she went to the Great Sandy Desert for work more than 30 years ago. She and her husband Brian have been exploring some of Australia’s most remote arid areas for work and play ever since. Mandy’s shot of the skeletal tree was taken on a trip through the Great Victoria Desert from Laverton, WA, to Coober Pedy, SA. “The marble gum is a signature tree of the region,” she says. “We planned our camp in a known grove so I could get shots. There was one dead tree near the campfire and, while we were sitting around at night, I set up the camera and started playing around with a torch to paint the tree with light. The shutter would have been open a couple of seconds to get the right exposure, but I had many attempts before I got it. That’s often the case: I know what I want to achieve, but not precisely how to get there. So I keep working with the variables and pressing the button until I figure it out.”
This story excerpt is from Issue #157
Outback Magazine: October/November 2024
