In the summer of 1988, Australia began its 200th birthday celebrations while I was on the beach with my twin lens Rolleiflex with a flash attached, imagining the end of the world. The Rollei’s leaf shutter aperture allowed for under exposures that rendered distant skies dark and leaden while synchronising with the flash that starkly lit bodies near at hand. The familiar became unfamiliar and the mundane, otherworldly. The flash gave graphic expression to the presence of a foreboding sun. In 1988 a hole that appeared in the Ozone created fears of radiation and health and environmental damage. And there were the American battle ships and nuclear powered submarines moored at Fremantle and Garden Island that too could trigger apocalyptic visions.

A young woman gazing at a beach girl beauty contest, stretched lazily like Dorothy waking after her trip to Oz.

A journey caused by a change in the weather