Everyone carries a piece of the puzzle. Nobody comes into your life by mere coincidence. Trust your instincts. Do the unexpected. Find the others….
TIMOTHY LEARY
Up Country
If you are going to spend a day or week in Tamworth, central NSW, there isn’t a better time then during the Toyota Tamworth Country Music Festival held in January each year. The festival features the best in Australian blues and country music with over 200 street buskers along with professional touring musicians performing free or ticketed shows in the main streets, pubs, clubs, breweries and the arena by the river in the centre of town.
With such an amazing variety of musical talent on offer during the festival, you can see why this famous country town event has attracted people from around Australia each year and is a must do for those who can still get amongst it in boots and a hat.
VIEW THE TAMWORTH GALLERY
The Passion and the Power
Street Machine’s Summernats, now in its 38th year has to be experienced to be believed. For those who live and breathe these cars, it is their pilgrimage. For the rest of us its smoke, rubber, racing fuel fumes, noise, cheers and a continual smile.
To spend an afternoon surrounded by a crazy bunch of friendly ‘burn out’ enthusiasts and some amazing automobile precision, in a hot dusty oval in Canberra, Australia, you just had to be there. Can’t wait till next year.
Stay in Lane
Sounds of the Suburbs was an independent music and arts festival held in Wilbar Lane, Cronulla from 2013 to 2016. This unique festival for the area was known for its boutique, laneway atmosphere featuring a mix of local and international indie, garage, and rock acts, installations and food stalls. As well as the music happening between the gallery and El Sol Mexican restaurant, the festival also featured art installations curated by festival organisers Space 44 including Jack Irvine.
Barefoot Pilgrims
What better way to start a hot December morning then a walk or swim at the beach. If you’re early enough you will catch the sunrise and vibes at Barefoot on the Beach Cafe in the South Cronulla surf club. Its now a pilgrimage for many locals and regular tourists and you can always be sure you will meet someone, know someone or be greeted by the biggest smiles around from Bec and Leigh, the proud owners.
One Cool Head
Born in Cronulla and now residing in a motor home at the beach, I have always had a creative bent. I love pushing boundaries and testing public / social limits and expectations. It’s given me a new sense of creative freedom and a feeling of connectedness to my community and environment. I also like knowing that I’m leaving my mark and, at the same time, adding something for others to interact with in their daily lives.
For me, every community needs people who like to test boundaries, take risks and freely, unapologetically express themselves. It adds flavour to a place. In the end street art is just a moment in time, you either catch it before it’s gone or you never see it at all.
Kirk Jenkins
Salty with Soul
Dingo Beach Hotel has been welcoming travellers, fishers, families and wanderers for decades. I was given the opportunity to shoot for the owners Paul and Debbie for the publication ‘Our Whitsundays’ and were fortunate enough to have discovered a place representing the old-school Queensland and with a coastal vibe. The experience was friendly locals, ocean views, and that feeling you’ve landed somewhere special… not fancy, but full of characters and stories. With their famous Dingo beach burger, Sunday afternoon singalongs and fresh local prawns on the plate all right there on the beach, you are experiencing a slice of the Queensland coast that’s as real as it gets.
Tommy J
Buzz cut, skin fade, taper, boxed up, cut, blunt fringe, hard part, thinned out, beard trim, junior cut, restyle or cut through shave… it all happens at Tommy J’s. With two locations stocked with an amazing collection of memorabilia surrounding some incredible barber craftsmen under the guidance of Tommy and AJ. What more could a sharp dressed man, or woman ask for. Its also one of my favorite photography projects to date too. Take a seat.
Beautiful Day
Four days of camping and music from classical, ambient, folk and metal to electronic among the cows in the rolling hills of southern England. It can only be the Beautiful Days Festival, which happens in August every summer and takes place in Ottery St Mary, East Devon, UK. It is an independently run festival by the band The Levellers and will feature again in 2026. Might see you there.
Driving Trains
My earliest encounter with Cronulla was via a long, arduous train journey. I can remember those languid summer days of the late sixties to the mid-seventies, far too hot to go to school and those cool refreshing waters. It was, it is, timeless, a place with nothing to do except kick back and enjoy while the world rushes by. Instantly smitten I resolved that this place would be my home.
Decades later I am driving trains, bringing people to and from, some to stay, others to return again and again. Every day, a solitary swimmer, countless kilometres, in all seasons, weather and surfing conditions, I am there.
It is the means of being, how I enjoin with earth, sea, sky, all creatures, plant and animal, the landscape, with Creation itself, and by swimming I am perpetuating what the ancestors of the Dreamtime sang into being, just as their descendants, the first peoples, did, what we all continue to do as we walk the land and beaches, swim the waters of this amazing place.
Tone Sherriff
Being Mindful
Care giving can be a constant learning experience and here at Mindful we truly believe we rise by lifting others. Along our journey, we have learned a great deal from our participants and in doing so, we have learned more about ourselves. There may be challenges at times, however, as you can see, they are quickly overshadowed by the good times and how enriched we are to walk through life with beautiful people who are on the same journey as us.
Jack & Bethany
Still Shaping
Using over three decades of surfboard building experience. PCC Surfboards is all about quality surf designing. Looking at the completed boards the undertone of an artistic element is apparent and is something close to the heart to Stuart Paterson the owner and shaper. The intuitive connection to the surfboard building process is something Stuart recognised many years ago.
Loving it
Mulga is Joel Moore, renowned Australian street artist, freelance illustrator, muralist, published author and designer of the much-loved Mulga product range. Mulga lives in Sydney, Australia with his wife, Sarah, and their three children. Known for his unique Australian creations and signature style of intricate line work and bright colours, Mulga’s creations grace walls and objects across the world.
Mulga loves the beach and surfing and his summer inspired designs bring to life a world where tropical bearded men run rampant, tigers wear diamond sunglasses and gorillas rule the world like some kind of funky planet of the apes.
Conceived at Sea
Conceived at sea in the eye of a gale, my legendary father, a finisher of 50 Sydney to Hobart yacht races, taught me to push and pursue boundaries with courage and good spirit. My dreams then lead me to connect with my local community so I decided to become a local bus driver, or as its known a Traffic Co-ordination Facilitator. Though 14 tonnes of metal may not resemble an ocean-going vessel, it requires a Captain responsible for all passengers aboard. It’s amazing how the days are never the same. At Shark Park, l had three ladies teach me Chinese greetings and another who gifted me fruit.
Music and painting are my passions, and my love of the ocean has always inspired my creativity.
Kristen Ross-Munro
Fish Fry
Sydney's largest modern retro surfboard event by Ben Di Donato, the Wanda Fish Fry / Surf Swap Meet was held on a sunny November day at Oak Park, Cronulla back in 2014. This annual surf rider and shaper gathering attracted a crowd of die-hard surfers with around 100 boards on display for sale and demo. From collections of retro single and twin fins to modern takes on the classic craft including fin-less, mini-simmons, eggs, soaps, spoons, logs, dogs, guns, trackers through to hand planes and surf memorability. The day was a complete success with epic weather, great waves at ‘shoes’ and a gathering of people and boards.
Park Life
The sun definately came out back in September 2009, for ‘A Day at the Park’ at the home of the Cronulla Sharks football team, down in Cronulla. The locals came out in force with their blow up sofas and picnic rugs and were entertained by the Hoodoo Gurus headlining alongside, You Am I, Beautiful Girls, Ash Grunwald, Bertie Blackman, Richard Clapton, Dead Letter Chorus to name a few.