I made a quick detour through the Wimmera Mallee whilst returning to Encounter Bay after walking in Wilsons Promontory for 7 days with the bushwalking group of Retire Active SA. We had traveled up to Mansfield and the Victorian high country for a couple of days after leaving Wilsons Promontory, and whilst we were on route from Mansfield to our overnight stay at Natimuk, we decided to drive the Wimmera Highway.

I was seeing vast space and big skies whilst thinking about the bleak and austere environment for the arts, writing and publishing in Australia. In spite of the splash of Melbourne’s international Photo 2022 festival grinding austerity appears to be the future for art photography, photobooks and critical writing about photography.

It had been a couple of years since I’ve been in the Wimmera — that was in pre-Covid times. On this trip I was reconnecting, remembering and thinking about possible future photographs, roadtrips and my two photobooks on the Wimmera whilst passing through the landscape on route to somewhere else.