Natural Ain’t In It

In a departure from my usual coverage, I’d like to share with you a few images taken from a recent trip into far-northern country Victoria. Obviously, they’re images of a cemetery – but I don’t mean for this post to be morbid. In light of the Australia Day long weekend, I thought to post some of my recent photography that is a mixture of two things most decidedly Australian – imported European tradition planted like an alien species into the expansive, sun-beaten interior of the nation we so irregularly explore. Isolated, without protection from trees – this cemetery houses a whole community of now-passed migrants whose children have gone on to build their own lives and own traditions here. The cicadas fill the air with static, the midday heat making the tombs radiate contained heat. The dead are shrouded within their opulent, reverential stone graves – the Madonnas and blessed Jesus figures staring blankly onto an open, relentless surrounding bushland. I find this  mix most curious, the totems watching over the encroaching, wide bush – the lack of an observant audience. The waiting and sense of sentience, I suppose.

From one thriving import to another – I wish you a happy Australia Day and hope you take time to consider how much of what we consider Australian to be an amalgam of our collective imported traditions. Natural ain’t in it.