MY LIFE IN PHOTOGRAPHY

As a ten year-old I used to get up early and go for a bike ride. I'd go down to the river to watch the sun rise.

One day I took my dad's camera with me. Grasping the cold metal of the aperture ring I captured the needle between the claws of the light meter, its honeycomb face reflecting a myriad little suns. I set the focus at infinity, composed an image of the river fringed by peppermint branches, the old boats silent at their moorings, and heard the soft chunck of the shutter just as the water became a gilded path to the horizon.

The picture, to my Dad's surprise, worked. I remember finding the colour slide in the Kodachrome box, and holding it up to the window, too impatient to wait for the projector.

I was hooked.

When photography became an option at high school, and a gardeners' shed was converted to a badly ventilated darkroom, I found myself entranced by the appearance of image onto paper as I gently slopped it in the developer.

From then on I haunted the local camera shop, befriended the people who worked there and indulged my lust for playing with cameras and lenses that I could not afford.

I started writing letters to the head photographer at The West Australian, telling him of my desire to be a photographer. I guess he was surprised to have a 14 year-old country kid asking to visit.

The old sandstone Newspaper House building was an amazing place. I sat in the office feeling the hum of the presses as they rolled out the afternoon editions of the Daily News, and looked at photographic gear in his cupboard that I'd only ever seen in catalogues.

The news wasn't particularly encouraging. Few cadetships became available – less than one per year, and I was one of a long list of young people who aspired to being a press photographer. I kept writing letters and I kept taking pictures, and figured that maybe I could be a member of the lucky few.

And then about five years later it happened.

My mother had answered and then handed me the phone. “Well, we've got a job for you, do you still want it?”

“When do I start?”

“Monday”

“You mean the public holiday?”

“Yes… the public holiday…do you want the job?”

The voice carried undertones of, “Oh boy, this kid has a lot to learn about newspapers.”

So, I started, on Monday. There wasn't much to do. They didn't even have a camera to give me. I had to draw a name out of a hat of photographers who had two lockers. I drew the name of the oldest bloke there. He wasn't happy, and gave the locker up on the proviso that I unpacked everything for him, including cutting and filing a spaghetti knot of black and white negatives. I was sent down to the Technicians' Room to use a dymo machine. I punched my name into the adhesive strip and stuck it to the locker door, just like all the others.

Camera or no camera, I'd made it.

Twenty-five years later I had amassed many fond memories to back up the assertion.

I had dived with dolphins, 200 kilometres out at sea, crawled and squirmed into previously unexplored caves under the Nullarbor, flown over Antarctica, landed on, and been catapulted from the decks of aircraft carriers, gazed over all sorts of scenery from door-less planes and helicopters, been out to sea in ships and on boats, climbed huge chimney stacks, hung over the edges of skyscrapers, abseiled down cliffs, parachuted, parasailed, and driven cross-country into the Bungle Bungles. I spent several years covering the North of the state- everything the other side of Carnarvon - creating excuses to travel the Kimberley as much as possible. My job put me in front of every prime minister since Malcolm Fraser, on royal tours, amongst sports heroes and backstage at rock concerts. I have met so many amazing people. Some were famous, some went on to be, and the majority were just wonderful people.

It was a privilege, but in the interests of keeping my life moving, I am now working for myself, and enjoying the experience.

So here I am. If you feel you would like to work with me, I'm sure the feeling would be mutual.