With a lifelong passion for both the birds and the bees, dating all the way back to his childhood growing up at Clontarf Boys’ Town, apiarist Wally Kerkoff is well respected in bird and conservation circles. He has spent over 30 years designing and constructing artificial logs for placement in the Carnaby’s Black Cockatoo breeding areas of Moora and Mogumber in WA. With the shortage of suitable natural nesting trees, this work has been essential in building numbers of the endangered Carnaby’s.⠀⠀⠀⠀

Most of the characters I’ve photographed along the way have been discovered after we’ve arrived somewhere. Lazy Les was someone we’d heard about over the years and we had our fingers crossed that he’d be around when we visited gold prospecting friends of ours near Leonora.

Just a couple of kilometres from Cue we started spotting life-size metal cutouts of blue sheep, and red dogs on kayaks. A little further down the road we saw Eric, sporting a crazy hat and obviously trying to get some phone reception, as he paced around his quad bike complete with Aussie flag, proudly fluttering in the wind. I’d barely started asking the question, and Steve was already slowing down to do a U-turn!

A friend to both Pixie and Honest John, Bushy is another Wyndham local adding colour to this small town. Honest John took me to meet Bushy at his home which still shows many signs of its past life as the Post Office.

…Welcoming me inside, I was introduced to Elizabeth - the beautiful and fashionable mannequin standing in his kitchen. “I was hoping she’d clean and cook” said Honest John, “But she doesn’t lift a finger.” Elizabeth was a souvenir from his days as “fashion advisor to the ladies of the Kimberley” when he had “a boutique” in downtown Wyndham. One of many businesses he’s owned and operated around the town, from all accounts…

…Physically petite with a big personality, Pixie has that quick witted, dry humoured, fast-tongued way about her that film-goers around the world hoped all outback Aussies would be like back after watching Crocodile Dundee back in the early eighties…

While we were all having coffee in town one morning, we were introduced to a bloke by the name of Pancho. Pancho had been a prawn boat skipper for MG Kailis back in the day, and had recently written a book about that and a lifetime of other adventures (including a riotous weekend on Rottnest with Bob Hawke before he was PM)…

It turns out you don’t need to be old to be an Old Bastard. We’d been told that John Wheelock has been the president of Carnarvon’s Old Bastards since its inception in 1982. A quick google revealed that the Australasian Order of the Old Bastards is an Australia-wide organisation, far less organised than the Rotary Club or the Lions, but just as effective where fund-raising is concerned…

Penelope’s story, sadly, is one told far too often in Australia. She is part of the Stolen Generations. Her very early years were spent at the Moore River Native Settlement before she was shifted to New Norcia Mission. As with many in similar circumstances, Penny’s life descended into one of alcohol abuse with her own six children also being taken away from their family. In between photographs, Penny shared tales of ill-treatment as a child, including sexual abuse, and alcohol-induced floggings and sleeping in public toilets as an adult. But Penny’s tale is also one of resilience…

“Karl Brandenberg, Carnarvon’s Shire President, dobbed his mate Peter in as a local, colourful character I ought to photograph. Karl told me that Peter was the roo shooter for the district for years. “He’s a laugh a minute…and tough. Cheeky as they bloody come”…

A morning spent with the senior citizens in Carnarvon, WA

Before any photographs were taken I sat down to enjoy a home-grown mango smoothie and a chat at the kitchen table with Carnarvon grower Rick Skender and his mum, Zarka…

Now in his 80s, Mick has spent a huge part of his life living in the beach shack his father built back in 1959, just north of Carnarvon. In fact he still spends a large part of each year there - having arrived in January he has no plans of heading back south until August. When I visit Mick, his mate Faye is there for a few weeks too.

I first met Ray and Merle when I was photographing their granddaughter Jamee-Lee’s wedding about five years ago, and remember thinking that I’d love to do a portrait shoot . I discovered that they lived in Carnarvon and filed that thought away for another day. This week I caught up with them at their home…

John McCloy originally came to Carnarvon as a teacher for the School of the Air. These days, in retirement, he can be found volunteering at the recently opened Museum down by the One Mile Jetty in Carnarvon’s Heritage Precinct.

It seems the whole of Carnarvon knows Dr Harry Sneddon. For many years he was the town’s vet treating creatures great and small. A quietly spoken, gentle man - a gentleman in its truest sense - it’s not hard to imagine him tenderly handling someone’s fur child at his practice in town, or horse whispering out on a cattle station. More recently he’s owned and operated the general store just out of the town centre to keep himself busy in his retirement.

Neighbours to Robin and Robert, Margaret Scally lives in Goodlands, on the northern edge of the Wheatbelt in Western Australia with her two sons. It’s not the easiest place to find but we spotted their ‘mailboxes’ next to the road sign bearing their name. Standing at her back door with views across to ‘the hills’, Mt Singleton and Mt Gibson, Margaret told us of her earliest memory - aged around five, being given the last rites by the priest when she had “the black measles”.

Now 77, Robin’s life has not always been easy but it’s been full of love. Emerging from the school principal’s office after getting “the cuts” for wolf-whistling at her, Robin first saw his “Princess”, Kaye as she walked across the schoolyard. “You know when you’ve seen an angel” he told me. Knowing he’d got a keeper, Robin asked her father if he could marry her six times before he gained approval…

Lesley McNee was our local contact in Koorda. Thanks to Les I got to spend a morning with the CWA ladies, and she also invited us to camp out on her farm, next to the beautiful old homestead…

If ever there’s a man who seizes the day it’s Mick, and his wife Judy seems more than happy to be going along for the ride…