When I was eleven, my parents let me take their instamatic camera on a school field trip to the Jenolan Caves. I didn’t have enough pocket money to buy a flashcube, so I tried pushing the shutter button at exactly the same time as a friend whose camera did have a flash. It didn’t work.
When I was fifteen, I spent hours sitting on the floor of Charlestown Library poring over the pages of American Photo Magazine. My brothers claimed it was for “the rude bits”, but that’s not true. Well, not entirely.
When I was seventeen, I borrowed my brother’s Canon AE-1 to take photos of pro surfers at Surfest. That weird kid hanging out with (well, awkwardly standing near) the likes of legendary surf photographer Paul “Sarge” Sargeant. You can see me in the background in one of Sarge’s Surfing Scrapbook movies. Number 4, I think.
Twenty-odd years later and I’m still making photographs.