Where We Choose to Stand.

I’m really drawn to streets with deciduous trees, I believe the foundation of this is from growing up in rural England. As much as I love my life in Australia, I do miss the change of seasons. It is this that has drawn me to Yarrunga Street.

I’ve been taking a photograph of this street in Robertson on the Southern Highlands of NSW now for over a year. My intention was and is still to produce a photographic diary of how Yarrunga changes through the seasons and pulling over on a Monday morning has become part of my routine. Standing at the western end, looking east.

I often think about what those passing drivers must be wondering as they pass an old grey bearded man taking a photo of a street. I wonder if they see what I see.

In Australia, there are only pockets of deciduous trees, usually in older towns when introduction of non-native species was less controlled. Most of Australia’s native trees are evergreen and so those pockets of introduced trees are a stark contrast particularly in Autumn.

With life being so hectic, it is little moments like this that make me stop and simply be in the moment. Knowing I’m watching something bigger than me unfold, watching how nature quietly reminds you things change over time. 

I was close to getting a full year's worth of photos. I was settled into the rhythm—and 'was' is the operative word here—until a thought hit me: 

'How does the street look from the eastern end, looking west?'

So, I drove up the street, parked the car, walked to the centre of the roadway and then everything changed. Gone was the sound of the traffic passing by. The quietness seemed to deepen the moment. I sensed my breathing slow as if time stood still for a moment, the light, the colours, the shadows... left me in awe.

Gone was the bare patch in the western view and now was an unbroken corridor of those beautiful autumn colours.

The view was much more beautiful.

Of course the bare patch is still there but now almost unseen.

I felt a sting of foolishness, I had spent over a year taking photos of the street, from the wrong end. I knew the photos would be better if from the west looking east there were more trees on that left hand side. But I ignored this thinking, “well that’s the way it is”, its authentic, but why did it take a year to realise that if I went to the other end, the photo might be different.

That gap, that absence of trees reminded me of my own life. I accept that the life my wife and I lead has the absence of the children we dearly wanted, we like to think we lead that authentic life, making our childlessness part of our truth. But now my experience with Yarrunga street has left me wondering...

What if we changed our perspective?

Not to remove the absence, not to pretend it isn’t there, but to see what else might also be present.

Because sometimes, the landscape doesn’t change…

Only the place we choose to stand.