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  Hugh Brown

  PO Box 214

  Darlington WA

  Australia 6070

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• news

  { 2011-01-27 }

  See a selection of Hugh's Pilbara Limited Edition Photographic Prints at Ecali Fine Jewellery: 91 Rokeby Road Subiaco.  Next to the Witches Caldron!

  { 2011-01-26 }

  In early 2010 Hugh was one of eight professional photographers engaged by Panasonic Australia.  They were each given three Lumix amateur cameras and ask...

  { 2010-12-31 }

  December 2010 capped off a big year for Hugh when he, and a videographer travelled to West Africa to document the lives of the artisanal miners of Burkina Fa...

  Read more news ...

Collectable prints

The Coast

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I decide to move the dinghy the short distance downstream to the original launch location so we can drag it up the mud-bank and have it out of the water before the tide surges. We grab the camera gear out of the boat and I suggest that Kate run the gear up to the camp. I don’t wish to leave the boat where it is given that the tide will soon surge. Kate’s a little worried about the croc hanging around the boat but I assure her that he’s okay as I’ll be in the boat and he’s not! Famous last words. I re-board the Kimberley Warrior II and within a few seconds hit sandbars again in the middle of the inlet. It’s about now things turn really pear shaped. I grab a paddle and push off the sandbar and move downstream in the middle of the channel to what looks to be in line with our original launch location. I swing the boat around in preparation to start moving toward the shoreline. Sandbar again. Damn. I now hit a bit of a problem. Tidal bore comes through. I look over my left shoulder. Not a pretty sight! The Kimberley Warrior II is taking on water over the left stern. I’ve got a few issues I decide. # 1. It’s pitch black. # 2. There’s a truck load of crocs around (some of the biggest in the Kimberley at that). # 3. Crocs eat people. # 4. I’m 50 – 60 metres from the bank. # 4. The water will be neck deep for much of the way in between the sandbars. #5 Crocs eat people in water. # 6. How to solve problems 1 – 6. Hmmmm. I gun the motor as a desperate last resort. To no avail. Bow in the air. I’m waist deep in water. Things turning pear-shaped big time. We’ve got a situation to attend to. This is serious: real serious; lizard serious. Motor’s going glug glug glug. Uncle Hughey hits the bale. I’m now neck deep in water. There’s no fear. Just adrenalin. I turn for a brief instant. Do I go back for the boat? Too dangerous I decide. I figure that things are out of my control now. I’ve read many stories of croc attacks to know how they all happen. All I can control is my forward momentum. I surge forward, but I’m expecting to be decapitated at any instant by a croc powering out of the water. All the crocs that we have seen, plus all the activity with the sandbars will have triggered their interest. It’s dinnertime at the zoo. The question is whether they feel like Uncle Hughey for dinner! The sand and the water are both silver. I can’t make out the bank. About ten metres out, it looks as though I have another fifty metres to go. I’m not going to make it. Still not scared. Just fatalistic. If it happens it happens. Out of my control. Five metres out I fall into a hole. Completely submerged. A second or so later I fall onto the mudbank and crawl up on hands and knees. Safe, nearly. I scramble up a little further to get a few metres away from the water. Now I am safe. Kate is in shock. I’d not heard her….I’m covered in mud. We … then swing around for the final irony. The dinghy is overturned. A croc is gnawing on the overturned hull. Hmmmm….

 

About Hugh Brown Collectable prints

In recent years, I have tried to focus on those aspects of the world that are disappearing and undergoing rapid change.  Landscapes, occupations, peoples, cultures and towns are but some examples.

To date I’ve produced four photographic coffee table books.  Each of these sold out reasonably quickly but most significantly for me, they now stand as a photographic record of places at a time in Western Australia’s history.  Already many of the people photographed have passed on and landscapes and industries have disappeared.

In 2003 I spent three weeks on the Kimberley Coast documenting the operations of one of Australia’s largest pearling companies.  Then no-one could ever have thought that pearling would all but disappear along the Kimberley Coast.  A victim of rising labour costs, disease and cheap imports from Indonesia.

As pearling disappeared, mining flourished.  I was fortunate to document the emergence of China and the mining boom.  Back then geologists said to me on numerous occasions that a person were extremely lucky if they could say one of the companies they’d worked with had made the transition from exploration to production.

I’ve been documenting the Pilbara since the arrival of the early drill-rigs, the huge equipment transported to and from the region and some of the world’s largest mines.

I was perhaps the only photographer to document the Pilbara at the peak of the global financial meltdown.  A time when entire mines were shut down and ports were empty or ships were not being loaded.

I’ve continued to photograph the changing fabric of Western and Outback Australia. The desire to document history makes up a large part of who I am and what I do.

Three years ago I photographed one of Northern Australia’s most famous bull-catchers in the far North Kimberley.  I pulled together the entire town of Nullagine for a group photograph in 2008 and, soon after, I pulled together the last eight residents of Wittenoom for perhaps the last group photo of the people left in that town.

Through all of this I’ve also continued to photograph Australia’s Outback characters and to take down small parts of their stories.  It’s important to me that at least some of photos and the incredible and colourful stories of these people be recorded before they pass away.  This is a lifelong project and each time I travel I run at least one or two or three interviews and photo sessions.

I’ve also sought to focus on rare events.  Two years ago I travelled to Birdsville in the Queensland Channel Country to photograph the mass pelican migration brought about by the flowing of water into Lake Eyre.  We spent nine days waiting for the weather to break. Then we took a helicopter and photographed an amazing colony of 60,000 pelicans from the air.  In mid 2010 I returned again and photographed Lake Eyre’s largest flood since 1974.

My desire to get into remote or greenfields locations has also lead to travel into some of the most remote and pristine parts of Africa and Papua New Guinea.

In 2008 I travelled into a remote part of the Congo Basin.  There I was fortunate to photograph a pygmy tribe that had never had white contact.  These photos are unique.

In 2007 I undertook my first trip into the Highlands of Papua New Guinea.  Most of the people I photographed had never seen a camera and I collected some unique images of a people that would shortly undergo massive upheaval.

The only access to the villages I photographed was by helicopter and the villages were almost totally devoid of any form of crime, violence, rubbish and the impacts of drugs and alcohol.  These photos in years to come will also be of significant historical importance.  Many of the villages I photographed continued to hunt with bows and arrows.

In years to come I will be the only photographer to have documented the change in these villages that resulted from the arrival of white man.

It’s impossible to be everywhere and to capture every significant historical event.  I hope that with the work I do, that I at least get to record those places and events that very few photographers get the chance to see and experience.  I hope that these will one day be an important historical record for Australia and the other countries that I visit.