People, Places and Stories from Regional New South Wales
The Places We Call Home is a long-term documentary photography project
exploring the people, communities, landscapes and stories of regional Australia.
Based in Griffith, in the heart of the Riverina, I am beginning this journey by
visiting the small towns and communities that make up the fabric of regional New South Wales.
This is a multi-year project
It is intended to become a significant part of my photographic life—a body of work that I can return to and develop over many years.
More Than a Photograph
I am interested in what lies behind the places we pass through.
But most importantly, the people.
Every town has people who have lived there for generations, people who have arrived recently, people who have left and returned, and younger generations deciding whether their future lies in the community or somewhere else.
Through environmental portraits, documentary photography, landscapes and recorded stories, I want to discover what makes these places home.
Documenting Change
Regional communities are constantly changing.
Agriculture, technology, drought, floods, changing industries, population movement and the loss of local services have altered the character of many country towns.
Some businesses have disappeared. Buildings have been lost. Railway lines have closed. Population numbers have changed.
Yet communities continue to adapt.
People continue to farm, work, volunteer, play sport, run businesses, raise families and look after one another.
I want to document both sides of that story—the change and the resilience.
This is not intended to be a project about decline.
It is about people and their determination to keep their communities alive.
The People Behind the Places
As I travel from town to town, I am looking to meet people who can help tell each community’s story.
Farmers.
Pastoralists.
Workers.
Business owners.
Community volunteers.
Sporting people.
Artists.
Retirees.
Young people.
Families with generations of connections to the district.
People who have witnessed their communities change.
Their stories will become an important part of the project.
Where people are comfortable doing so, I hope to combine their portraits and
photographs with interviews, memories and personal observations.
The photograph shows us what a place looks like.
The story tells us what it means.
A Living Archive
One of the long-term aims of The Places We Call Home is to create more than a collection of photographs.
I want to build a living visual archive of regional Australian communities.
The project will continue to grow as I revisit towns and people over time.
A person photographed today may be photographed again five or ten years from now.
A business may change hands.
A building may disappear.
A young person may leave—or return.
A town may grow, decline or find a new direction.
By returning, I hope to document those changes as they happen.
Giving the Stories Back
The project is intended to be accessible to the communities being documented.
As the work develops, I hope to make the photographs and stories available through my website, exhibitions, publications and community presentations.
Where appropriate, I also hope to work with local museums, historical societies, libraries and community organisations to help preserve material relating to their communities.
The people who share their stories should have the opportunity to see how those stories become part of the larger project.
From the Riverina Outward
The project begins close to home.
The Riverina provides an extraordinary starting point, with its network of large regional centres, small towns, farming communities and remote settlements.
Towns such as Ardlethan, Barellan, Booligal, Beckom, Ivanhoe and many others will become individual chapters within the larger story.
Over time, I hope the project will extend beyond the Riverina to other regional and rural communities across Australia.
There is no predetermined list of towns and no fixed finishing date.
The project will grow organically as I discover new places, meet new people and hear new stories.
The Long-Term Vision
Ultimately, I hope The Places We Call Home becomes my magnum opus—the major body of photographic work that defines my career.
The eventual outcome could include exhibitions, books, individual town stories, an online archive and material preserved for future generations.
But I am not trying to reach that destination quickly.
The value of this project will come from time.
From returning.
From listening.
From building relationships.
From watching people and places change.
And from continuing to photograph long after the initial project has finished.
Why I Am Doing This
I believe the ordinary stories of regional Australia are worth recording.
The people who open the shop each morning.
The farmer who has worked the same land for fifty years.
The volunteer who keeps the community hall going.
The retired worker who remembers when the railway was busy.
The young person deciding whether to stay.
These stories may seem ordinary today.
But with time, they become history.
The Places We Call Home is my attempt to document that history while it is still being lived.
It is a journey through regional Australia, one town, one person and one story at a time.
And there is no final destination.
I will keep photographing for as long as there are stories to tell.
