Way Outback: Night Writing

After years of the starless Shanghai night sky I am grateful for the impossible closeness of the South Australian stars. They are dense and bright like diamond dust thrown over black velvet. At times they seem more like the street lights of a distant neighborhood than celestial bodies.

I spent one clear night in the front yard using the moon to make these images. I opened my camera shudder and drew the image with the fixed light of the moon. This trip has been about observation and experimentation. I have the luxury of time and very little distraction. My days are filled with studio time and my nights with writing. I've used them both to take a deeper look at story telling in this small community.

Next week I'll start posting an account of the hunting trip I took this weekend. The Anangu men I was with tracked the Ngintaka (lizard) and chased the Malu (Kangaroo) with expert skill. In an afternoon we had enough food for ourselves and three other families. It was a lesson in the reality of hunting as a subsistance lifestyle. I'll be releasing the story in serial format with three parts. It was an amazing day and I'm excited to tell the story.

Way Outback chronicles my time in the remote outback town of Ernabella, South Australia. I am spending a month here collaborating with aboriginal artists. For more information on the project you can visit the Kickstarter page that helped fund this project by clicking here.


Click below to read the other posts from the series
Way Outback: The Road to Ernabella
Way Outback: Night Writing
Way Outback: Chasing the Light
Way Outback: A Story for the Eyes
Way Outback: Animal Kingdom
Way Outback: Paint, Money, and Land
Way Outback: The Red Walls of Uluru