Photographer Paul Blackmore on the beauty of Australia’s untold stories
Paul Blackmore photographs Australians the way we see ourselves — unguarded, sun-marked, mid-moment.
His lens follows people across both surf and scrub — coastal towns, river edges, true country. Still, it’s water that often acts as both his setting and shorthand — moments that capture an Australian way of being; moments that feel ordinary until you realise they’re not.
Based in the Northern Rivers of New South Wales, Blackmore’s career and oeuvre has meant regular movement and adventures — from early days on assignment and time spent working for the dollars before a balance of the personal and the commercial.
It’s the former that sparks a yearning to be outside and to embrace the unsung edges of Australia. And it felt the right time to sit down and talk, to further uncover the wonder of this country and encourage that sense of adventure and exploration that lines his peerless work.
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When did you first feel the pull of photography?
“They had a darkroom at school as part of the art curriculum — I was just transfixed. As soon as I saw an image getting developed in the developer, I was like, ‘oh, this is like alchemy’. And as soon as that happened, I started taking photos,” Paul Blackmore said.
And the first job — you assisted in fashion, right?
”I’d finished a degree in philosophy and went straight out (to work as a photographer) assisting a couple of fashion photographers but I was getting very frustrated with that. I knew that’s not what I wanted to do. It’s so stylised and the work wasn’t really speaking to me as a person. I mean, it was enjoyable and I learned a lot about cameras and the technical side, but I just knew that wasn’t the work that I wanted to do.”
“I got so frustrated, I ended up getting in a car and driving north and I had this sort of Jack Kerouac idea of being on the road . . . I had some contacts, had some friends in Walgett (northern NSW) and went up there. They introduced me to a couple of farmers and I went out with some pig shooters and ‘roo hunters.”
You’re on the road, you’re young, you’re shooting a unique slice of Australia.
”Yeah, and I kept on going and drove all the way up to Darwin and I ended up in Arnhem Land through a contact and I was invited up to Bulman (an Indigenous community) and photographed in Bulman Springs — this amazing shot with some kids in the billabong there. I was away for a couple of months,” Blackmore said.
“I got back, developed all the photos and ended up showing the guys at (former news magazine) The Bulletin and they did a big spread and that was it, I was away. That journey, that first experience, that’s when I realised I could do this, that I felt I had a voice, I thought I had something to say and I just kept going — travelling, shooting, and about four or five years later I published (debut book) Australians, and I was off and away. That’s when I knew what I was going to do.”
That was the imprint to really chase Australian stories.
”Definitely. And back then I was sort of questioning, ‘what is it to be Australian? Who are we? What’s my role in this and where the hell I’m from?’ I used to look at a lot of overseas photographers and was envious that they had this great sense of who they were and where they were from. They had this strong sense of their culture like Abbas (Attar) from Magnum,” he said.
“So, for me it was a way of getting some ownership about who I am and where I’m from and just being able to go up to Arnhem Land — what a privilege to see how rich Australia really is. We’ve got the oldest cultures here. It’s incredible.”
There’s an image of yours I find particularly beautiful on a number of levels — the young girls dressed for the ball, their gowns framed by the red dirt. What’s the story here?
”I did this big trip last year for a couple of months, where I went through central Australia up to Aurukun (Far North Queensland). I just remember seeing so many negative stories coming out of those communities and yet, going off my earlier travels, I just remember the richness of these places and communities. And so one of the impulses was to get out there and tell positive stories and show the great things happening in Australia rather than all the negativity,” Blackmore said.
“I was really looking for those incidental moments of beauty — and it could just be daily life, like someone sitting in the back of the car with their dad or what I shot up in Aurukun, the NAIDOC ball. It only happens now and then but it’s this beautiful story. All the dresses are donated through a charity out of Brisbane and the whole community has embraced it and they all turn up and everyone just walks from where they get ready down to where the venue is. It’s an amazing phenomenon. You don’t see that anywhere really — the whole community walking as one.”
Water is obviously extremely important to you, looking at the role it plays in so much of what you shoot — and as seen in exhibitions and your books Heat and At Water’s Edge.
“For me, going to the ocean is a bit like a secular baptism, you immerse yourself in the water and it’s like a personal cleansing of mind and body. But when I’m shooting people in water, it’s almost like a psychological space as much as a physical one. And so, I don’t know, I keep going back to photograph people in water and rivers and lakes and the ocean. It’s something that goes right through all my work.”
What does travel offer you Paul, if you reflect on it in terms of the ability to move and experience both professionally and on a personal level?
“Whether I’m travelling with my family or just shooting, I’m always trying to find those incredible moments of beauty or transcendence. It could be eating something in Italy just blows your mind or jumping in a different bit of water somewhere. I mean for me it’s all one big thing. So travelling and meeting different people — it’s the excitement that you don’t know what’s going to happen. I love that.”
