Manugal – planting rice with the Dayaks

A couple of weekends ago, our new friend (and workmate) Lelie very kindly invited us up to visit her village of Tewang Rangkang, on the Katingan River about 80km (or 2 hours) to the northwest of…

Kuda Lumping

One of the nice by-products of the after-school art classes at the YUM library, which are now co-hosted by Karen, is that she makes connections with families around the immediate area. So, at the Sunday…

Idul Adha in Marang village

A few weeks ago we were invited to attend an Idul Adha event in the (mostly Javanese Muslim) village of Marang – about 20km from here. We rode our little Yamaha Jupiter to the village,…

Smoke gets in your eyes

  It’s the tail-end of the Dry Season (Musim Kering) here in Central Kalimantan. Here (and in parts of Sumatra) it’s also known as Musim Kebakaran (‘the Burning Season’), because of the prevalence of man-made…

Kanarakan village

Last week I went north up the (Rungan) river with some of my new workmates to check on the condition of home gardens in the village of Kanarakan, which has no road access. It’s still…

Independence Day, Jogjakarta

Chicken sate vendor, Jogjakarta. It was 17th August – Independence Day – and the streets and footpaths of Jogja were streaming with people out be part of the festivities for the big day. Families with…

Turtle Nesting, Mallacoota

I find it useful to allow pictures to ‘cure’ for a time before deciding which ones I like. Sometimes the images that appeal most at first viewing don’t survive the passage of time and re-viewing.…

Photography is…

I liked this quote from Annabel Crabb. She was talking about the power of the photographic image in the context of politics (and in relation to Clive Palmer in particular) – but I think it’s…

Future Landscapes VII: Flight

Humpback Flight

This image is a composite of two photographs. The background was taken inland from Merimbula, during a day of preventative back-burning. Dense smoke clouds emerged from many locations in the forest (part of the Southeast…

Future Landscapes VI: Eden Washovers

Edrom Wharf Washover

I’m not sure whether to view this image as a still frame from an over-the-top disaster movie, as a piece of subtle-as-a-sledgehammer environmental propaganda, or just as a visually interesting play on the fact that…

Future Landscapes V: Miscellany

The Garden of Eden

The waters of Pambula Lake join with the ocean through a narrow inlet which runs between Pambula Beach and Haycock Point. There are large shell middens still clearly visible alongside the channel. In the pre-dawn…

Future Landscapes IV: Fisheries

Fishery Sunset

A large ‘hazard reduction’ fire was burning on the slopes of Mt Imlay, and a light southerly wind blew the smoke clouds up past Eden. As a result, the sunset light from the Snug Cove…

Future Landscapes III: Mallacoota Washovers

Mallacoota Washover II

The base photograph for this image was taken in Mallacoota, looking across the Genoa River inlet towards the ocean. Large numbers of pelicans frequent the area, attracted in part by the fish cleaning benches at…

Future Landscapes II: Seascape minus…

Seascape Minus Fish

The woodchip mill on the southern end of Twofold Bay (at Edrom Point) is operated by South East Fibre Exports (formerly Harris-Daishowa), a subsidiary of Nippon Paper Industries. Despite declining production due to the high…