Six different Australian photographers, each with a different photographic style, discuss their lives and their work.
TRAILER LINK - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2632k1Yo16g&t=15s
The photographers are:
Tony Mott - rock'n roll photographer
Born in the UK Tony migrated to Australia as a young adult, settling in Sydney. Mott is recognised as Australia's premier rock photographer and a leading worldwide exponent of the craft. In a career spanning more than 30 years, his photographs have appeared in local and international magazines, newspapers, and album covers. In addition to music celebrities Tony is also fascinated by travel and has photographed much of Africa and South Asia, with a forthcoming book and exhibition of these photographs.
Atong Atem - South Sudanese art photographer
· A Atong Atem is an Ethiopian born, South Sudanese artist and writer living in Narrm/ Melbourne. Atem’s photographic practice includes textiles and video, and explores migrant narratives, postcolonial practices in the African diaspora, and concepts of identity, home, and liminal space. Atem has exhibited internationally at the Tate Modern, London, Rotterdam’s Wereldmuseum, Fotografiska Shanghai, Stadtgalerie, Germany and with PHOTO Australia at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Atem was the recipient of the inaugural La Prairie Art Award from the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2022 and the National Gallery of Victoria and MECCA M-Power scholarship in 2017. Her work was exhibited in 2025 at Les Rencontres d’Arles photography festival, and at the Paris Art Fair in late 2025
Adam Ferguson - photojournalist & war photojournalist
After growing up in NSW and studying photography in QLD, Adam moved internationally to pursue a photojournalism career, with a particular interest in war photojournalism. He worked in India, Afghanistan, Africa, as well as in New York, often for Times or the New York Times.
Having survived some traumatic war situations he returned to Australia to do a photographic survey of the Australian bush, published as a book titled Big Sky. This series includes rural life, shrinking small-towns, Aboriginal connection to country, pastoralism and the adversity of climate change. This series was exhibited in 2025 at Les Rencontres d’Arles photography festival.
Ruth Maddison - feminist photographer
Born in Melbourne into a Russian-Jewish migrant family, Ruth grew up in St Kilda. Her father was a prominent political peace activist and was also anti-Zionist so he was monitored constantly by ASIO and also attacked by Zionists within the Jewish community. Ruth became politicised by feminism in the 1970s and picked up a camera alongside Ponch Hawkes. Many of her early photos reflected the alternative arts and ‘left-wing’ environment she was living in within Melbourne.. And from early on she also started hand-colouring her prints, including her first series Christmas Holidays with Bob’s Family (1977-78). Ruth continued her social documentary work after moving to Eden, NSW in 1996,with a series on local teenagers, as well as series focusing on the fishing industry and the timber industry, the two major workplaces in the town.
Michael Cook - Indigenous art photographer
Michael is an Aboriginal Australian artist of Bidjara heritage. He was raised in Hervey Bay by adoptive parents who were not Indigenous, but brought him up to value and nurture his Aboriginal identity. Michael uses his camera as the ‘third eye’ which can bridge European and Indigenous worlds and perspectives – to experience the other side of the coin, roles being reversed, worlds inverted or histories rewritten. His images are carefully crafted and often multilayered, sumptuous and fantastical. Michael won the Fisher’s Ghost Art Award, the Josephine Ulrick & Win Schubert Photography People’s Choice Award and was also a finalist in the Bowness Photography Prize.
His artworks are held in all major Australian collections and in significant international collections, and was exhibited in 2025 at Les Rencontres d’Arles photography festival, and at the Paris Art Fair in late 2025.
Ashlee Jansen - underwater photographer
Born and raised in Melbourne, Ashlee developed a love for the ocean at an early age. After many years traveling, developing skills and improving my knowledge on the ocean, in 2022 she was named the Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year. With a young baby she is now based in Exmouth, Western Australia living her dream job as an underwater photographer on the Ningaloo Reef.
CREATIVE TEAM
Producer/Director - Fiona Cochrane
Editor - Rosie Jones
Cinematographer - Mark Street
Sound - David Muir
Sound post-production - David Muir, Mark Street, Keith Thomas