An oyster farm and a cat skinner.
I settled into life on Kangaroo Islands remote south west coast, an indulgent and blissful period living close to nature. As money ran out, a television job in nearby Adelaide came up, so I commenced 9 weeks work on Deadline Gallipoli. Having recently worked on Anzac Girls, the Foxtel project put me back in World War 1, with some impressive actors in the leading and supporting roles. We shot through through a cold and rainy South Australian winter. Fortunately I was amongst a great group of people, colleagues from countless productions, a hard working world class film crew. I was kept busy doing all my usual stills photography job as well as shooting all the hero photographs on behalf of the photographer lead character that feature throughout the show.
Sam Worthington as Phillip Schuler in Deadline Gallipoli
Back on the island, our family decided to pack up the log cabin on the stunning Stun Sail Boom River and prepared to move. Living on the enormous bush property, with its private river and secluded coastline, had been a beautiful time in our lives, and inspiring creatively. Ky has been the busy photographer in the family, her Yoni Landscape series gets more stunning as she goes along. Such a multifaceted artist and human being, she has just launched her new website kyalecto.com and has started practicing her art therapy on the island.
Yoniscape Tryptic by Ky Alecto
Our Kangaroo Island adventure continued with a house sit in town of American River. With an oyster farm and a cat skinner, a shop and post office, the little town has a diverse and interesting collection of people. It had dawned on me late to start taking photographs of my new friends on Kangaroo Island, so I wasted no time. Portraits and community photo essays have always been my thing and I am really enjoying this series, meeting up with some great people and giving them the photos.
Lara, Jeanie and Rusty. From my Friends on the Island, so far-portrait project.
The movie Tracks opened in the US, and alongside the release a beautiful photography book was launched. Rick Smolan, the actual National Geographic photographer on Robyn Davidson’s epic camel journey in the 1970’s, had done all the hard work, bringing his stunning old negatives to life with modern scanning technology and putting together the book. We met on set in Central Australia, had got along well and it had been great working with him over the project. Stills photographers dream that a making of book comes out from all the films we work on, but these days they rarely happens, which makes it really exciting when it does. The large format, high quality interactive publication features a combination of Ricks original photos and my on-set portraits and stills, and Rick sent me with 45 copies of them!
Inside Tracks, Rick Smolans book with lots of my stills in it.
Summer is the busy tourist season on Kangaroo Island, and Basketboy’s big time of the year. I have started performing my busking show again and have been basket weaving most days, making stock for my monthly market stall. The Rustic Blue Gallery and Kangaroo Island Fine Art Gallery have also started selling some of my woven creations and a friend ow sells them at a market stall on the mainland, the empire grows. For me, the woven baby rattle has been a calling, as well as a great weaving challenge. My own baby rattle, purchased somewhere in England in the 1960’s, was the inspiration, and after to weaving vast numbers of these traditional baby toys, most not suitable for children, I am finally getting close to mastering the Spiral Weave Rattle of my youth.
Spiny Rush Spiral Weave Baby Rattles ready for market.
When our American River house-sit came to an end we needed somewhere new to live. A pretty beach house with lots of trees and a big shed came up for rent and we moved into the sleepy seaside town of Baudin Beach, Kangaroo Island. With a gorgeous private beach in our backyard and a staggering collection of local birds, the house was also available for sale and after a short time it just seemed dumb not to buy it.
Baudin Beach, my new backyard.