Artist Bio

Hugh Brown - adventure photographer

Over the years, many people have asked what prompted me to take up photography and change tack so markedly from my formal training in commerce and law. When I moved to the Kimberley in October, 1998, I had become burnt-out with the corporate and city lifestyle. In April, 1998, and following a meeting in Perth, I took leave and travelled to the Kimberley. This was the start of my love affair with the north. I returned to Melbourne, flew back to Broome, where I teed up a job, and departed Victoria for a 5,000 kilometre trip that took me west of Ayers Rock and across through the Gibson and Great Victoria Deserts. That was 1998.

Though my love for the north was immediate and strong, it was some years before I felt comfortable. Something inside worried that I would eventually be pulled back to Victoria. I determined to see as much as I possibly could. Each weekend, I would jump in my vehicle (initially, an old Subaru) and drive - up to 2500 kilometres. Having taken not more than 20 rolls of film in my life to this point, the camera came everywhere. Kanch, my Labrador, did too. Most of the photos were pretty ordinary, but somehow I was hooked. I would return home, send the film to Perth and wait the week or so for the results. When the processed film did arrive, I’d study it for hours, working out where I had mucked up and how I could not replicate the mistakes next time. It was education by trial and error.

Since 1998, many things have changed. Photography has become my livelihood, and the north, my passion, heart and soul. Photography has become my window to a far bigger picture: my window to adventure. It has given me the excuse, and now the opportunity, to push personal limits: to try new things and test personal boundaries of fear. It has opened me to a wealth of experiences and taken me down a path that I could never have envisaged.

With friends, and often alone, I’ve crossed rivers at the height of their Wet Season flow, on occasion above 100 metre waterfalls and photographed in narrow 100-metre deep slot canyons in torrential rain. I’ve been hit by lightning, during a trip to the east of Marble Bar, and been bogged, alone, in a saltwater creek on the Canning Stock Route. In the latter case, it was mid January, 47⁰C and no-one had travelled the area for perhaps a month or more. In January, 2006, we took a helicopter over two days and photographed the Kimberley at its most dramatic. Though A$7,000 in camera gear was lost to rising floodwaters (while photographing in heavy rain at the head of a powering waterfall), that trip will stay with me as one of the most memorable of my life.

In February 2006, with an English couple fresh off a cruise-liner, we pushed and skull-dragged 130 kilos of wheel-barrow, 19 kilometres through rock and mud, to our camp-spot at the bottom of an elevated scarp: brutal work, but immense fun. Then, in October 2006, with eight other people, I was fortunate to participate in a 10 day survival exercise through the Chichester Range in the heart of Western Australia’s Pilbara region. The median weight loss of the group through the 150 kilometre walk was around 10 kilograms, during which temperatures reached 46⁰C and we lived entirely off the land: another fantastic experience.

In 2003, while sitting in Froghole Chasm in Purnululu National Park in Western Australia’s Kimberley region the idea came about for my first book: The Kimberley – Australia’s Wild Outback Wilderness.  This was followed in 2005 by The Pilbara –Outback Australia’s Kaleidoscope of Colour, and then in 2006, by my first hard-cover large format book, The Kimberley – Tierra De Mi Alma – Land of My Soul.  In September 2007, I released my second large format coffee table book, The Pilbara – Australia’s Ancient Heartbeat.

Since 1998, I have been fortunate to have worked with many great clients. These have included Ausdrill Ltd, Australian Geographic, BHP Billiton, Bridgestone Earthmover Tyres, Coates, El Questro Wilderness Park, Kailis Australian Pearls, Nomad Modular Building plus many others. My work has taken me throughout Australia, and, more recently to Africa and Papua New Guinea. My work is represented in Australia by the Wildlight Photo Agency and internationally by IPN Stock.