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Getting up early is one way to add a different effect to your photos. It’s a variation on an observation in a previous blog noting that photographers often go where other people don’t. Lots of people prefer to sleep through as many sunrises as possible, but the photographers among them are missing out. Early morning light can be as beautiful as late afternoon light, and the air is often cleaner. Babies can help with the waking up bit. So here is Tim in the back yard with low, golden sunlight shining from the east. I have no idea now why we were…

Our son Tim, our second child, was born in 1986. It was a privilege and a joy to experience the growth of our family. Among the many other positives, I got to try my hand at baby photography for a second time around. It’s not easy. In the first few weeks and months of a baby’s life, photographing them is a matter of patience, luck and timing. Babies pretty quickly sort out how to respond to faces with a smile, but it is often fleeting and quick to disappear. Babies don’t know what a camera is. It might be a curious shape…

In the previous blog, I wrote that my camera was often used to record significant family moments. I guess I was sufficiently conscious of the value of everyday pics to also record little moments such as this photo of Rachel talking to my father in the little dining nook. This was in a house we had bought that year on the other side of town. I like the engagement between the pair, and the way Rachel is leaning in to the conversation with her grandfather. You can see a sliver of the view out the window. I look at this photo these…

In 1984, my photography was mostly about our new baby daughter. Rachel grew and changed; she had her first birthday, learned to walk and started to talk. There are plenty of baby photos among the slides taken during her first 12 or 18 months, but this one stands out: three pairs of shoes drying by the tile fire. I like that I was able to see the photographic possibilities in this little scene. It is satisfying to tell a story about people in a photo that has no people in it. I have plenty of the usual photos, of course. There’s Rachel…

On my 27th birthday in April 1983, our first child Rachel was born at the cottage we rented a few kilometres out of Manjimup in Western Australia’s south-west corner. We had made the move out of the city, but we were still a step away from the south coast. A newborn child, becoming a father, Marg becoming a mother – all of this cried out to be put before a camera. But I was fully engaged with the birth and the aftermath. I found time to take this pic about mid-morning as Marg and Rachel relaxed from the strenuous effort of giving…

In 1981 and 1982, Marg and I worked as youth workers in the suburbs of Perth. We worked with a crowd of friendly, questioning, fun-loving young people who were full of energy. Most of the time that we were in the crowd, we were fully engaged, and my photography was shelved. In the story of our lives, these years blend together as one and so do the photos. However, we were new enthusiasts for the south coast and we began to take small groups on bushwalking expeditions on long weekends. I took my camera on most of these. I enjoyed photographing our…

Our taste of bushwalking in 1979 was only the beginning. From here on, the Western Australian bush and the south coast in particular feature in my photos. In December 1980, friends took us into a patch of wilderness on the south coast. I enjoyed walking, fishing and exploring in a wild but fairly benign environment. I remember being surprised to find a trickle of fresh water flowing onto the little beach where we camped and swam. I was more used to the bush in the dry Perth hills. The notion of a beach with its own natural supply of fresh water was…

This photo of Marg studying hard for her degree was taken in the dining room of our first home together. Apart from the thoughtful pose of my young wife, observe a few things. The phone is sitting on the chest of drawers – no mobiles. Marg is using a pen – no computers. She would write her essays longhand and then type them on the manual typewriter. We had wine in a box, but we had obviously also splashed out on bottled wine at some stage. The poster on the wall is a classic Lord of the Rings, decades before it was…

So yeah, work it out and you might agree that I was too young to get married. But in 1978, that’s what I did, and it has lasted for four decades. Some rough patches, some smooth. Obviously, there was something right about it, even if there was a bit of concern back then that it wouldn’t last. Respect to my wife Marg for putting up with me for so long. This photo is of Marg on our honeymoon. We spent that precious time in Denmark, on Western Australia’s south coast. Something must have clicked, because we ended up shifting to the region…

The photographic motivation that I experienced in my time in the Pilbara kicked into a higher gear when I travelled overseas for the first time in 1977, during my mid-course gap year. I found a whole world of sights that I wanted to record to show to my family and friends back home. First I went back up north to earn some more money, sold my Kombi, then I flew to Singapore and on through Moscow to London. I had a sudden exposure to new cultures, beginning with the tropical shock of Singapore, where I came across this ritual taking place in…