Most people put bread on their plate, but Sydney photographer Kazuaki Ono has placed a spelt loaf in Western Australia’s Pinnacles desert, fig-leaf sourdough on Sydney’s Bondi beach and sprouted rye by Tasmania’s Huon River.<\/p>\n
For his Southern Crust project, he visited 24 Australian bakeries to capture our unique bread culture, evading red-bellied black snakes, driving extreme distances for baked goods and eventually carrying 30 kilograms of loaves home.<\/p>\n
The idea for Southern Crust began in May last year, when Ono was asked to participate in a Tokyo exhibition scheduled for October 2025.<\/p>\n
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Kazuaki Ono has spent hours photographing pastries in peculiar places for his Southern Crust project. (Supplied: Kazuaki Ono)<\/p>\n
The concept merges his skills as an experienced commercial photographer with the fact he also shapes loaves \u2014 he’s been running Sydney’s Akipan bakery with wife Kana since early 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Southern Crust also conveys to an international audience that there’s more to Australian bread than avocado toast.<\/p>\n
Families earning a crust<\/p>\n
As Ono researched his project, he decided to focus on small, family-run businesses vital to their local community.<\/p>\n
UN photographer turns lens on women of rural Australia<\/a><\/p>\n Parisian-born UN photographer Martine Perret turns her lens to capture the resilience and strength of women in rural Australia. \u00a0<\/p>\n “Because I am myself an owner and head baker, I was warmly welcomed wherever I went,” he says.<\/p>\n In South Australia’s Barossa Valley, he met the family behind the fourth-generation Apex Bakery.\u00a0<\/p>\n Its wood-fired oven has continually fired loaves for a century<\/a> \u2014 making it a contender for Australia’s history books. Ono photographed their 1924 sourdough, which is made with a slow-ferment recipe as old as the business itself.<\/p>\n When Ono picked up the giant Epooro loaf from Shady Wasef’s Pioik<\/a> bakery (located minutes away from Ono’s Akipan), the photographer knew he had to find a backdrop that did it justice.<\/p>\n “Because the bread name is ‘The King’ in [Coptic] Egyptian, that’s why I need the grand landscape,” he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ono headed to the Blue Mountains with Lincoln’s Rock in mind.\u00a0<\/p>\n Because the scenic lookout was so windy, he ended up photographing the loaf in a hidden spot under Lincoln’s Rock \u2014 shifting positions as the weather and sun’s direction changed.\u00a0<\/p>\n “I spent maybe \u2026 five hours here,” he says.<\/p>\n When bread mimics life<\/p>\n Some shots took even longer to nail.\u00a0<\/p>\n On the NSW South Coast he had to call home and explain he’d be spending an extra night in a motel.\u00a0<\/p>\n “I couldn’t find a good spot,” he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n Holding out for the right backdrop paid off, though.\u00a0<\/p>\n When he propped up Honorbread’s fougasse at Camel Rock, the ancient geological formations complemented the seed-crusted flatbreads perfectly.<\/p>\n Kazuaki Ono had an encounter with one of Australia’s reptiles while shooting at Camel Rock. (Supplied: Kazuaki Ono)<\/p>\n Was he worried about beach waves knocking over his fougasse, though? He laughs and admits the six-hour shoot did involve an unwelcome presence: a red-bellied black snake slithering through.\u00a0<\/p>\n “It was scary,” Ono says.<\/p>\n It required an eight-hour drive from Perth to get to Western Australia’s Twilight Beach Jump rock, where he positioned a house loaf and oat sourdough from Bread Local for a shoot.\u00a0<\/p>\n The long hours behind the wheel were worth it \u2014 this was his “favourite” spot.<\/p>\n His portrait of Organic Bread Bar’s pretzel croissant was done locally: the pastry’s laminated swirls cleverly echoing the Sydney Opera House in view.\u00a0<\/p>\n But dragging five bags of bread and camera equipment was necessary to perfect it.<\/p>\n The photographer only dropped two loaves while crisscrossing Australia for his shoot.\u00a0<\/p>\n Everything else, he saved.\u00a0<\/p>\n “I can’t throw the bread [away],” he says, particularly as a baker.\u00a0<\/p>\n His wife still remembers him returning with a suitcase full of loaves near the project’s end.\u00a0<\/p>\n “Fourteen kilograms of bread he brought home that day,” she says.<\/p>\n From Sydney to Tokyo<\/p>\n Southern Crust showcases a variety of artisanal baking styles, from futuristic-looking croissants by Melbourne’s Dr\u00f6m Bakery to sourdough pressed with fig leaf from Sydney’s Cherry Moon General Store.\u00a0<\/p>\n It also celebrates Australia’s wildly diverse landscapes: from Western Australia’s surreal Pinnacles Desert (with yellow rocks resembling Wild Bakery’s seedy spelt loaf) and Bombo Headland Quarry’s sci-fi moonscape formations in New South Wales, where chilli-oil fougasse from Kiama’s Slow Dough creates a striking presence against the rocks.<\/p>\n The chilli oil fougasse mimics the formations of the Bombo Headland Quarry. (Supplied: Kazuaki Ono)<\/p>\n When Ono showed Southern Crust to Tokyo audiences in October, his motivation wasn’t entirely bread-inspired.\u00a0<\/p>\n “My purpose is ‘Please come [to] Australia \u2026 Please see the Australian culture with your eyes, perspective’,” he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n “That’s the point.”<\/p>\n While the exhibition drew friends he hadn’t seen in 44 years, Southern Crust meant a lot to Ono in other ways.\u00a0<\/p>\n Across Australia, he saw how small bakeries functioned “as a community hub” in towns.\u00a0<\/p>\n An Aussie doco about a Scottish porridge competition is winning hearts<\/a><\/p>\n Every year, the Scottish town of Carrbridge hosts a porridge competition. Aussie documentary The Golden Spurtle celebrates its outgoing, larger-than-life leader.<\/p>\n Connecting with bakers was also invaluable: they asked him about shokupan, the Japanese bread in which his bakery specialises, but also shared thoughts about fermentation, shaping and other concerns of the trade.\u00a0<\/p>\n “Now, they know me and they know Akipan. I’m pretty lucky in the industry,” Ono says.\u00a0<\/p>\n Because he’s only been professionally baking for three years, it felt special to have their respect.<\/p>\n Although the Tokyo exhibition wrapped by October’s end, Ono wants to make Southern Crust accessible to wider audiences \u2014 beyond the website<\/a> and social media account<\/a>.<\/p>\n “One year ago, I thought it was just a photo exhibition. But after that, I feel I have to continue this creation,” he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ono will keep photographing bakeries and perhaps even stage an exhibition here.\u00a0<\/p>\n “I have to show these things for the Australian audience,” he says.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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