First Rodeo, 2025

Despite what the name of this shot-on-film image might suggest, I’ve come to learn a lot about rodeos. It’s a tough, unforgiving sport with none of the niceties of most, such as changing rooms with ice baths and physio to take the pain away. Rather, these part gladiator, part entertainers, receive nor expect nothing more than the raw earth upon which they stand to ply their craft. It’s in these places, beneath the stalls of the arena, wedged between the chute and stock pens, that this series of photographs was taken. I thank all the subjects for accepting me in their domain, many in a moment of focus before entering their colosseum, others staring straight through my lens as if I was not there.

I grew up as the youngest child in a family of engineers. Each weekend, we would pull something apart and rebuild it or make something from the latest issue of Popular Mechanics Magazine. One week, it was a motorbike; the next, a transistor radio; the next, a scale model hovercraft.
I gained an appreciation of ‘the machine.’ And as a kid, there was no more beautiful or magical machine in my eyes than the camera.

I got my first job in photography as a trainee at a department store photographic studio. Under the watchful eye of the Studio Head, I was tasked with shooting every item in the store, from sporting goods to ladies’ lingerie, for the weekly catalogue. Much like the karate kid, it seemed mundane and repetitive at the time, but looking back, it was, in fact, where I mastered the art of lighting.

I never went to art school, but I’ve always been a student of the art. I loved the great street photographers like Henri Cartier-Bresson and Elliott Erwitt, but Robert Capa, adventurer and photojournalist, was my ultimate hero. To capture images that define a time is one thing; to do it in a war zone requires a calculated yet improvisational shooting style, which I’ve subscribed to throughout my photographic life.

I have always been more comfortable in the company of nature than people. For many years, I traveled to remote areas, shooting only landscapes. Photographing people, however, forced me to face my introversion and step out of my comfort zone. I think this is why portraiture is now my most favoured form and why I’ve gained such a strong reputation for it.

I began my career shooting film and know I will end it the same way. I embraced digital photography for a time before I was drawn back to the allure and antithetic of analog photography. For me, photography has always been a craft, an ability to see things others cannot, paired with a technical prowess formed from decades of trial and error.