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Life changed suddenly after I finished school. In 1974, I took a gap year, which was not a common choice back then. In April, just a few days after my 18th birthday, I boarded a plane for the first time in my life and flew to the Pilbara to work for Mt Newman Mining.

I went from the soft south to the hard north, stepping into a completely different climate zone and a totally different life zone. I left behind the world of childhood, adolescence and schooling, and entered the working world of adults. Long days, tough conditions, off to the pub, out to the bush, road trip to Broome, on strike for more pay.

This photo is of an iron ore train on the Newman-Hedland line. I worked as a chainman on a survey crew. I saw this sort of country over and over. It is vast, red and baking hot. We had days of 46-degree heat (115 Fahrenheit). I learned that the swarms of flies would disappear quite abruptly once the temperature hit about 44 degrees. I also found where they went: if you looked closely at the trees drooping in the heat, the flies would be sheltering on the underside of the leaves.

It was such a different world to my suburban childhood, and my camera was part of the way that I chose to share it with my family and friends. I photographed the newness of it so I could show it to others later. My motivation fell somewhere between the documentary and the tourist.

I don’t know for sure, but I guess I got a new camera about this time. This photo of Sturt pea flowers shows very shallow depth of field. I had been using the Praktica LLC I bought in 1973, but from the look of this photo, I may well have owned my Olympus OM-1 by this time. I can’t remember the date that I got it, and I didn’t record it anywhere.

The Prakticas are long gone, but I still own the Olympus. I don’t use it any more, but I still cherish it for its marvellous f1.2 55mm standard lens. What a beautiful lens. Among the photos taken on film over the next three decades (I went digital in 2004), quite a few were only possible because of the great ability of this lens in low light, or they owe their special quality to its shallow depth of field and wonderful bokeh.

Did I say road trip to Broome? This photo shows the main street in Broome before it became a tourist mecca. The road from Hedland to Broome was unsealed at this time, meaning 400km of corrugations, dust and potholes. A group of us from Mt Newman Mining drove up one weekend to visit a sleepy town that is now long gone. Once the highway was sealed and Lord McAlpine gave the place a kick, Broome woke up to its touristy future, and it has never looked the same since. My photo certainly has a documentary aspect, showing a receding past.

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