Georgia Bragg, 22, is a first-time OUTBACK contributor.
Story Kate Newsome Photos Georgia Bragg
On Boxing Day, 2019, just before the drought broke on Beemery, a sheep and cotton station between Bourke and Brewarrina, NSW, the Braggs had decided to give their rams “a bit of a Christmas lunch”. While the flock scattered down the driveway that cut a reddish line through parched paddocks, Georgia Bragg took a moment away from the family festivities. Standing on the front steps of the house, she launched her drone.
“It’s quite mesmerising once it’s up there and you see the way the flock moves,” she says. The photo taken that Boxing Day captures a fond memory of the station and the growth that the new year would bring.
It was her upbringing on Beemery and seeing firsthand the “resilience and spirit” of farming communities that got Georgia interested in “the importance of growth and the people who make it happen”.
Georgia challenges herself to think laterally in how she works with light and perspective over Beemery’s vast floodplains, rich red claypans and winding river bends. Wishing to capture candid moments of working on the property, she gets among the shearing and heads out to the yards when the trucks are being loaded, the dust kicked up and caught by beams of early morning light.
Recently, Georgia moved to the NSW Mid-North Coast. After spending the first 2 decades of her life on the station, she says that it was heartbreaking to leave Beemery and the Bourke community that has supported her growth as a photographer.
These photos were taken since that Boxing Day and are, Georgia says, what ties together her memories of the station and her reflections on what growth means: “growth in agriculture, growth in the community and growing up”.
This story excerpt is from Issue #148
Outback Magazine: April/May 2023
