Wet But Fine Exhibition Opening …

It was raining of course … it is the wet season after all. But that didn’t stop people turning up in droves to the launch of my “The Aak Puul Ngantam Stockman” exhibition at The Tanks Arts Centre in Cairns on Friday evening.

It was brilliant to see so many friends, colleagues, fellow photographers (many of whom I don’t catch up with often enough!), new acquaintances and faces from years long past, brave the elements to attend, share stories and down the odd drink.
Many Thanks must also go to charismatic indigenous leader Bruce Martin who took time out from his manic schedule to open the exhibition.

The Tanks exhibition space is expansive, full of character, versatile … and  wonderful. In addition The Tanks crew of curator Chris Stannard, Olivia, Gio, Belinda and Lisa – have done a wonderful job of curating, hanging and letting the world know about my work.

Spread around the huge space are my thirty two images – fourteen large portraits of the Aak Puul Ngantam crew each on their own floating wall and eighteen prints of the APN mustering operation. It all looks fantastic.

The images in the exhibition were made at the Cape York Peninsula mustering operation whilst working on a story for ‘The Australian’ … and have since, gratifyingly, received some critical acclaim and awards.

If you did miss the opening night ‘launch’ the exhibition will run till March 2nd in tank 4 of The Tanks Arts complex Cairns.

Below are three images of the exhibit at The Tanks – the top two show the character of the space with some of my prints in place, whilst the third is from the opening night celebrations.

ABC Radio was just one of several media outlets to publicise the exhibition and opening eve and you can listen to Fiona Sewell’s great work in interviewing yours truly on the ‘Play’ page of my web site – or alternatively here below …

 

Images © Brian Cassey – Audio courtesy ABC Far North ©

The Tanks APN Exhibition

The Tanks APN Exhibition

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Exhibition at ‘The Tanks’ …

Less than two weeks to the launch of my “The Aak Puul Ngantam Stockman” exhibition of images at a great venue – ‘The Tanks’ in Cairns.

Curator Chris Stannard and The Tanks crew are now putting together the exhibit which consists of the large ‘stockman’ portraits, smaller collected prints of the APN Cape York mustering operation, video, audio and a slide show of images.

The large portraits of the APN crew – taken of every member at the bush camp as they returned from an exhausting muster – will each be hung on their own individual ‘wall’ arranged around the interior of one of the massive WWII fuel tanks . Will look sensational I’m sure.

The driving force behind the indigenous APN Cape York operation – Bruce Martin – has confirmed his attendance at the opening eve event … and hopefully more members of the crew.

You too are also more than welcome on the opening eve – Friday February 7th from 6pm – and your invitation can be found here.

Below is The Tanks promotional poster for the event. The exhibition will run from opening eve February 7th till March 2nd.

Stockman Image of Dominic Ngakyunkwokka © Brian Cassey

APNTanksExPosterBlog

Cape York Cattle Muster Essay …

Have now found time to post a new photo essay from the Cape York mustering trip – “Cattle Muster Cape York”  – to the web site of my collective ‘fotostrada’ under ‘Latest Stories’. The new essay is in addition to the “Aak Puul Ngantam Stcokman” essay of portraits posted earlier.

This set of images were made during the mustering operations – by horse back, helicopter and quad bike, on the remote property out from the indigenous township of Aurukun. The stock they are mustering, numbering about 5000, are the remnants and descendants of a failed cattle venture in the 1990’s.  The participants are a mix of elder experienced former aboriginal stockman, young indigenous men from Aurukun keen to learn the ropes, a white family of head stockman, wife and cook and two daughter Jillaroos, a teacher for the kids and a ‘roustabout’ – all of whom are directly involved in the day to day hands on mustering operation.

The venture is an attempt to provide sustainable employment and a sense of pride in the indigenous town – and break the cycle of booze, drugs, violence and welfare dependency.

They have already had some success with the sale of mustered stock fetching record prices at a recent Mareeba cattle auction.

The work was made for ‘The Australian’ newspaper with text by journalist Michael McKenna and was published over four pages (including page 1) of  ‘The Weekend Australian’ edition (see earlier post below.)

Posted below are just three images from the complete essay which can be found in full at http://www.fotostrada.com/#/latest-stories/cattle-muster-cape-york/BCAurukunAPN24

Images © Brian Cassey

Indigenous Stockmen Saddle Up Again …

A little pleased with this weekends The Weekend Australian (27.10.2012).

Last Weekend I ventured once again up to the wilds of Cape York Peninsula, this time with journalist Michael McKenna, for a four day visit to Bruce Martin and his APN Cape York cattle enterprise a hundred K out from Aurukun.

APN Cape York is an initiative of Bruce and the collective Wik clans of Aurukun – an attempt to provide sustainable employment and a sense of pride in the indigenous town – and break the cycle of booze, drugs, violence and welfare dependency.

The idea of this particular plan of Aak Puul Ngantam (which in Wik mean “our father’s father’s country) is to return to the traditional  ‘country’ – in this case as stockman to manage and profit from the approximately five thousand head of cattle left to run wild after an earlier venture failed in the 1990’s. To work on the land just as their forefathers did many decades before.

Our task was to document the mustering venture in words and pictures for the weekend edition of  The Australian.

It didn’t start well … the ute taking us through the bush shed the drive shaft half way though the journey in the middle of nowhere, meaning we were unceremoniously towed into the mustering camp.

Sometimes, however, things fall into place – and with the help of the entire APN crew present – stockman Jay, Kenneth, Winston, Dominic, Steven, Cameron, Allan and Bruce, roustabout Perry, cook and mum Rebecca, jillaroo sisters Nina (5) and Shae-Anne (10), their teacher Moyra and helicopter pilot Brendan – the coverage went like clockwork (and with a great amount of banter and good humour).

I photographed the team erecting stock fences, mustering on horse back (and in Bruce’s case off the horses back!), helicopter and quad bike and training a herd of cattle to be used as a host herd.

The Weekend Australian used what must be a record number of images on the same subject by the same snapper – 22 of my pics in all over five pages – along with Michael’s excellent thousands of words! They also run on-line a photo essay and a video.

I’ve posted below screen grabs of the pages involved – and the online photo essay can be found here – and the video here.

Also below is just one image from the set of portraits I made of all the camp participants – an essay to be entitled “The Aak Puul Ngantam Stockman” – which I hope to exhibit at some stage in the future.

The full sets of images will appear on my web site when the current site revamp is finished in a few weeks time. They will also feature soon on the web site of my collective ‘fotostrada’.

© Images Brian Cassey

 

Thousand Kilometre Images …

Often the easiest part of making images is pressing the shutter … and the hard part is getting to the right place to take them!

Such was the case this week on a job for ‘The Australian’ broad sheet.

The object was the take pics to accompany a story by Brisbane based journalist Sarah Elks on the subject of the controversial and now doomed Queensland Wild Rivers legislation and the opinions of grazier Scott Harris at Strathmore Station between Georgetown and Croydon in remote north west Queensland.

It entailed a round trip drive of well over a thousand kilometres dodging rock spitting road trains …  a substantial amount on corrugated gravel roads … which equated to almost fourteen hours behind the wheel over two days. A few of the native wild life met their demise over those hours including a rather fat bird of prey who obviously over indulged feasting on a road side roo carcass, failed to gain sufficient height on take off and smashed into my windscreen. Had to confess the rather large crack from top to bottom of the screen to the hire car company on my return.

Grazier Scott Harris and his wife Kerry were extremely gracious hosts and we spent dinner in the evening with their crew planning the best scenario for images.

Strathmore muster by helicopter and quad bike (not a horse in sight) and we made a plan to make the images of the choppers mustering stock across the Einasleigh River at dawn.

At first light we took off in the Robinson 22 helicopters and watched the sun peak over the horizon from a thousand feet.

The mustered cattle did their part as Scott and contract pilot Mike Fleming coaxed them across the river and the images were made. ‘The Weekend Australian’ ran with a large image on page 1 and a further 3 images and story on page 5.

The Australian also ran a ten image slide presentation “Helicopter Cattle Muster” on their web site which can be viewed here.

Below I’ve posted a grab of the image of  The Weekend Australian’s front page, another of page 5 … and an image of grazier Scott preparing to take off pre dawn.

Images © Brian Cassey