{"id":366607,"date":"2025-12-23T12:01:24","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T12:01:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/366607\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T12:01:24","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T12:01:24","slug":"photographer-paul-blackmore-on-the-beauty-of-australias-untold-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/366607\/","title":{"rendered":"Photographer Paul Blackmore on the beauty of Australia\u2019s untold stories"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul Blackmore photographs Australians the way we see ourselves \u2014 unguarded, sun-marked, mid-moment.<\/p>\n

His lens follows people across both surf and scrub \u2014 coastal towns, river edges, true country. Still, it\u2019s water that often acts as both his setting and shorthand \u2014 moments that capture an Australian way of being; moments that feel ordinary until you realise they\u2019re not.<\/p>\n

Based in the Northern Rivers of New South Wales, Blackmore\u2019s career and oeuvre has meant regular movement and adventures \u2014 from early days on assignment and time spent working for the dollars before a balance of the personal and the commercial.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

ROAM. Landing in your inbox weekly.<\/p>\n

A digital-first travel magazine. Premium itineraries and adventures, practical information and exclusive offers for the discerning traveller.<\/p>\n

By continuing you agree to our Terms<\/a> and Privacy Policy<\/a>.\"Still,Still, it\u2019s water that often acts as both his setting and shorthand \u2014 moments that capture an Australian way of being; moments that feel ordinary until you realise they\u2019re not. Credit: Instagram\/paulblackmorephoto<\/p>\n

When did you first feel the pull of photography?<\/p>\n

\u201cThey had a darkroom at school as part of the art curriculum \u2014 I was just transfixed. As soon as I saw an image getting developed in the developer, I was like, \u2018oh, this is like alchemy\u2019. And as soon as that happened, I started taking photos,\u201d Paul Blackmore said.<\/p>\n

And the first job \u2014 you assisted in fashion, right?<\/p>\n

\u201dI\u2019d 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\u2019s not what I wanted to do. It\u2019s so stylised and the work wasn\u2019t 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\u2019t the work that I wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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 \u2018roo hunters.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BasedBased in the Northern Rivers of New South Wales, Blackmore\u2019s career and oeuvre has meant regular movement and adventures. Credit: Instagram\/paulblackmorephoto<\/p>\n

You\u2019re on the road, you\u2019re young, you\u2019re shooting a unique slice of Australia.<\/p>\n

\u201dYeah, 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 \u2014 this amazing shot with some kids in the billabong there. I was away for a couple of months,\u201d Blackmore said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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\u2019s 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 \u2014 travelling, shooting, and about four or five years later I published (debut book) Australians, and I was off and away. That\u2019s when I knew what I was going to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was the imprint to really chase Australian stories.<\/p>\n

\u201dDefinitely. And back then I was sort of questioning, \u2018what is it to be Australian? Who are we? What\u2019s my role in this and where the hell I\u2019m from?\u2019 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, for me it was a way of getting some ownership about who I am and where I\u2019m from and just being able to go up to Arnhem Land \u2014 what a privilege to see how rich Australia really is. We\u2019ve got the oldest cultures here. It\u2019s incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BondiBondi Beach – His lens follows people across both surf and scrub \u2014 coastal towns, river edges, true country. Credit: Instagram\/paulblackmorephoto<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an image of yours I find particularly beautiful on a number of levels \u2014 the young girls dressed for the ball, their gowns framed by the red dirt. What\u2019s the story here?<\/p>\n

\u201dI 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,\u201d Blackmore said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was really looking for those incidental moments of beauty \u2014 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\u2019s 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\u2019s an amazing phenomenon. You don\u2019t see that anywhere really \u2014 the whole community walking as one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Water is obviously extremely important to you, looking at the role it plays in so much of what you shoot \u2014 and as seen in exhibitions and your books Heat and At Water\u2019s Edge.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, going to the ocean is a bit like a secular baptism, you immerse yourself in the water and it\u2019s like a personal cleansing of mind and body. But when I\u2019m shooting people in water, it\u2019s almost like a psychological space as much as a physical one. And so, I don\u2019t know, I keep going back to photograph people in water and rivers and lakes and the ocean. It\u2019s something that goes right through all my work.\u201d<\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether I\u2019m travelling with my family or just shooting, I\u2019m 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\u2019s all one big thing. So travelling and meeting different people \u2014 it\u2019s the excitement that you don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen. I love that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paul Blackmore photographs Australians the way we see ourselves \u2014 unguarded, sun-marked, mid-moment. His lens follows people across…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[449,458,459,64,63,460,134,1625,3792],"class_list":["post-366607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-lifestyle","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}