Hot Weather and Marriage Disputes

Our ute doesn’t have air-conditioning and it was hot. But we’d just moved to Yass and I was itching to explore the region, so I hassled Justin into accompanying me on a Saturday outing to Harden, a farming community 62-kilometres north-west of Yass and 342-kilometres west of Sydney.

One very sweaty drive later, tempers were unsurprisingly on edge, so we thought it best to see the sights separately — I fossicked through the Harden-Murrumburah Historical Museum and a vintage shop, while Justin stayed in the car drinking iced coffee and listening to the cricket on the radio.

At first, lunch seemed to make the situation worse. I have the most inconvenient food intolerances, which seem to be unheard of in Harden eateries. In desperation, we headed to the local supermarket, where we agreed on a single gluten and dairy-free item … a barbecued chicken. Well, one skeleton and a box of wet wipes later and we’d discovered the solution to any marital dispute.

In a fresh and perky mood, we wandered past crumbling historic facades in Harden’s centre, before driving through the town’s back streets in search of residential icons. That’s where I found and snuck into this backyard of car wrecks and Suffolk-cross sheep. Fortunately for me, the makers of the gloriously plastic Pix Panorama — described in the owner’s manual as a “pice (sic) of precision machinery” — think it’s a waste of precious film to leave gaps between frames. The result is an extended montage of moving bodies, coloured with an old-world rust from cross-processing Fuji Sensia 100.

PS: you’ll be pleased to know we’re installing air-conditioning in the ute this summer.

Mail Boxes and Other Local Quirks

I have a very patient dog — she is used to regularly stopping on our daily walks as I indulge in my new fondness for photographing mail boxes. From vintage milk urns and machines with teeth to native animals and bland rectangular boxes, the people of Yass express their quirks (or occasionally, lack of) through their favoured means of receiving mail.

Their front yards are equally revealing. Some are littered with push bikes and prams — one even has a plastic pony that rocks on a spring when children climb aboard. In others, wagon wheels, windmills and rusted farm machinery are sculptural elements. I often wonder if this is a case of resourceful recycling or a conscious tribute to our farming community.

One thing is for sure, locals are not keen on fences. Those that do exist tend to be barely-visible grids of wire, reflecting perhaps a relaxed, trusting and open attitude.

Photographers Are Meant to Rise Early

It’s a rare morning that I see Justin before he leaves for work. I’m a late riser, albeit one who is torn between the guilt of “wasting” precious hours and the joy of always getting enough sleep, of never having sore, puffy eyes. Sometimes I beg the night before to be woken early, which usually elicits a gentle response — a cup of tea on my bedside table, which invariably has to be revived in the microwave when I finally get up. Occasionally, and more effectively, I’m hounded out of bed, such as on this day in mid-August. We rose at dawn and I took this shot of Justin at sunrise. Note the work “uniform” staples — the security pass on the hip and thermos of (definitely hot) coffee in hand.