Coober Pedy – The Rusty Ruin Journal

The first flush of winter and some photos

June 5, 2025July 27, 2025Posted in Aesthetics and Technique, PhotographyTagged Coober Pedy, Olympus, outback Australia, Photography9 Comments

Winter seems to have finally arrived and the looming long weekend here is threatening rain and wind. Not fantastic conditions for photo-walks, of course, but some interesting details can usually be found for the lens even on grim days. On this cold night, after a day of work, I’m scouring the file folder and not seeing aything that fires the imagination too much, so a loose photo assortment follows.

*Lake Hart, SA Australia – Olympus OMD EM5 Mark 2*

I like the coloured layers in this photo. Driving into the outback not far beyond Port Augusta, lies Lake Hart ~ a vast inland salt lake that’s easily accessible from the rest area and car park. The salt crystals crunch underfoot and the moisture below this top layer gets muddier the further you walk out.

*Rusted and overturned car – Olympus OMD EM5 Mark 2*

So often, we miss finding an interesting subject to photograph when the sun moves low and the light turns golden. On this occasion, after a day of driving through the Australian outback, we spotted this overturned and burned out car. The sunset rays hit the rusty body just right so that it glowed gold and red and orange. I must have made a dozen photos and this was the only one I was happy with. Always good to get close-up to subjects like this too.

*Opal mines hereabouts – Olympus OMD EM5 Mark 2 and Zenitar 16mm Fisheye lens*

Have you noticed that I’ve posted very summery and warm photos on this wintry eve? This vehicle has seen better days, for sure. It’s used as a signpost around Coober Pedy now.

Detritus in Coober Pedy

October 6, 2024July 28, 2025Posted in Philosophy and Photography, PhotographyTagged abandoned, Coober Pedy, culture, ethics, philosophy, Photography, psychology1 Comment

I mentioned the town of Coober Pedy in a previous post. Going through my file folders tonight, I found some more ruins and the remains of dreams from this famous outback town. I often wonder how these places and things come to be abandoned and decaying.

*No driver – Nikon D7100 with 35mm AFS Nikkor 1.8*

Who once drove the bus? How did it get there? At some point, I imagine it will be nothing more than a pile of rusted metal, merging with the earth, gears and pistons embedded in thick soil. Perhaps a few blue paint flecks will provide some clue to a future explorer?

Old walls become a canvas for political statements, the remains of a broken window framing the tension painted in bright pink. Thinking of photography as a voyeuristic pursuit, as Susan Sontag once wrote, such images can lend themselves to such consideration. Is there some voyeurism at work when photographing places like this? Perhaps. I certainly feel some drive to frame the political statement and focus on the socio-cultural tensions. Do I engage with it by recording it or do I step away from it by framing it as artfully as I can?

*Homes not Tails – Olympus OMD EM5 Mark 2*

Photography can only frame the world for others to view. Once out in the world, the audience applies their own values and beliefs. By providing the framing, the photographer must step aside for a moment to engage in the act of viewing rather than participating. But in the framing is the delightful devil – a story told by the photographer in cutting out a single view from the whole. What lies beyond the single frame and does it matter?

Blasted landscape – Mad Max country

September 24, 2024September 25, 2024Posted in PhotographyTagged apocalypse, Coober Pedy, digital camera, Mad max, Nikon, Nikon Z5, Olympus, Photography1 Comment

There’s no place quite like Coober Pedy. Long-known as one of the major opal capitals of the world, Coober is also a town where some people go to disappear from mainstream society. Others try their luck at opal mining, desperate to hit the jackpot and retire. Some do and the majority don’t. It’s tough work out there in the heat, underground, drilling into the sediments of an ancient seabed. There’s always someone to buy any opal finds at the end of the day and always someone who’s at the end of their luck.

The first time I visited Coober, I was 15 or 16 years old. I remember it being a pretty rough frontier-type settlement, with dust in the air and people living underground, away from the stifling heat of summer. I also remember walking around, unaware that I was trespassing on someone’s land, and a lady suddenly emerging from a hole in the ground with a shotgun in hand. She wasn’t too keen on opal thieves it turns out. Lucky for us, we were just clueless tourists.

*Sunset scorch – Olympus EM5 Mark 2 with 16mm Zenitar Fisheye lens*

Out around Coober Pedy, they recorded parts of the Mad Max films. If you’re familiar with those movies, you’ll appreciate that this ancient landscape provides the perfect post-apocalyptic backdrop. There’s an eerie beauty to the Australian outback and I love those places where there’s no-one for miles around.