IMPORTANT NOTES
It is important that you understand the terms of use of this site. If you would like to reproduce any of the images for books, booklets, brochures, maps, exhibitions, newspapers or other commercial applications, you will need to obtain a reproduction license from us.
License fees vary with the use; examples of typical fees can be found here.
If you don't have a project at the moment, you can bookmark this page and come back to make a selection at a later time. If you would like to order any of these images, please use the Contact page, and tell us the details of your intended use.
Although we don't yet have a ‘lightbox’ facility, we have tried to make ordering online easy for you. If you have any comments or feedback, by all means contact us.
Stock Library: Life on the Hawkesbury
Behind the scenes
When the call came in from Australian Geographic to shoot the Hawkesbury River, I was over the moon. This was an assignment right on my doorstep! I live in a historic cottage overlooking the river and I had always wondered what was further upriver. Rather than be bored with a photographic assignment so close to home, it gave me an opportunity to explore “round the bend”. Miles away, near Richmond and Windsor (which are outlying towns west of Sydney), the Hawkesbury River is well known; it was once the agricultural breadbasket of Sydney. But closer to its mouth, and closer to my home, much of it is unprobed territory: steep sandstone cliffs, riverbanks choked with mangroves and oysters, and who knew what else.
The writer, Danielle Teutsch, and I embarked on our adventure with a “walk” that turned out to be an arduous climb followed by a swim with our packs through the rocky gorges of the Wollondilly, the river which is the primary source of the Hawkesbury. Further downstream we travelled by car, bicycle and foot and found old churchyards, aboriginal sites and bushranger caves. Lower still, we chugged through snaky bends and reaches of the river on our Halvorsen cruiser; the “Duelling Banjos” theme played in our heads as we slid by crumbling wharves, wooden shacks, and the occasional lone caveman with his dog staring at us. We boarded the boats and punts of prawn fishermen, oyster farmers and cray fishermen. It was hard to believe that here was a populace who lived as if it was a hundred years ago—people who had worked all their lives, raised their children and lived in homes that could be accessed only by water—and it was all just minutes from one of the busiest capital cities in the world!
What was meant to be a 2 or 3 week job took me nine months to shoot, as each new bend of the river yielded another intriguing story or character. I simply couldn’t put the camera down. It was an intensely satisfying assignment which has yielded an important body of work. I hope they live on as a record of a very special part of Australia.
PS – There are 195 images in the show; be sure to see all 13 pages. If you don't find what you like online, I have heaps more!