Cover Photographer - Louise Coghill

We’re introducing you to Australia magazine cover photographer Louise Coghill, who hiked the Cape to Cape and Larapinta Trail for the issue, and mused on her journey to Karijini National Park. You can see more of Louise’s work here - and order a copy of the Australia mag here.

- When did your journey as a photographer begin?

I picked up a camera properly for the first time when I was 15, borrowing my fathers Nikon while we were living in Zambia. I used it as a way to explore the strange place we were in; it helped push me out of my comfort zone, and also created a comfort zone of its own. Having a filter to view the world through allowed me to explore further. I went on to study film and TV, wanting to make movies, and took a class in photography where I learnt the basics. I didn’t love the class though and I quit pretty quickly. The assignments felt so sterile in comparison to film and TV. Photography only re-entered my life when I moved to a sleepy little town in Far North Queensland where there was no film industry. I was a lonely young adult and photography became a tool for me to head off on little solo adventures into nature. 

- What do you love about taking photographs? 

Photography has helped me live a more adventurous and spontaneous life. It pushed me to book tickets abroad to find places and stories to photograph. As I began journeying further afield and travelling through Europe and Asia photography helped grow my comfort zone. When I was lonely on my solo journeys my camera would support me. When I was feeling out of my depth it felt ok because I was going to take a nice photo. I love the process as much as the final product. 

It was a way to share my journey, even if I was there on my own at the time. I would capture it knowing it would go online and my friends and family would comment and enjoy it with me. Sharing the moments and stories, bringing my adventures back for other people to experience without the smelly clothes and sore feet and thousands of kilometres of hiking required, is incredibly special to me. 

- What is your favourite thing to photograph? 

I love telling the stories of my journey and of the places I’m exploring. Capturing the epic images alongside the reality of life on the road. And I love trying to capture time. Whether its a quiet moment when a butterfly lands, the movement of water, the morning sun striking the Australian bush. I love capturing these fleeting moments, the ones most people don’t notice. In a world where we take 2.6 billion photographs daily, and have travelled to nearly every corner of the globe, it’s those little moments that feel special and worth capturing.

- You've embarked on quite a few hikes now - what makes this kind of experience such a wonderful thing to photograph?

It’s a slow way to move through the world, and it gives me time to take my camera out and capture the landscape and the journey, while still enjoying the world around me. There is no rush to get home, there’s no bus to catch. I just walk and snap. While I love the process of photography, at times it can be overwhelming, the need to capture the spaces I inhabit, the sunsets I witness. With hiking I get the space to enjoy it all, and not worry so much. I have to keep walking, so I have to give myself up to the landscape. Sometimes I’m walking through a beautiful space when the lighting is stunning. Other times I’m walking through the spectacular landscape in the midday sun, and I just leave the camera in my backpack and enjoy the view. 

- What does the word 'home' mean to you? 

My parents property up in Gidgegannup was always what I thought of as home. I would move from share house to share house, packing my stuff into storage every 6 months to a year and hitting the road again. But Gidgegannup was the one place I could let my roots grow, and not worry about them dying away when I travelled again. Mum and dad always kept them watered for me. Everywhere else home felt like an elusive concept. I didn’t feel at home on the road, but the various spaces I lived in, never fully felt like home either. My parents’ property burned down earlier this year and I had to redefine that space. I began putting my own roots down, growing plants and letting myself stay in one place. Now home is more easily defined as the places my loved ones are. It’s not attached to the spot but to the people within it. 

My definition of home has changed how I travel too. I have a place and people to come back to now, so my adventures have become more defined. I don’t aimlessly journey for months on end. I know where I’m going and when I’m coming back. And it feels really good. 

- Is Western Australia a good photography subject? 

Western Australia was a difficult place to photograph when I was younger.  I wanted the mountains and the loooong golden hour. Australia is incredibly sunny, so much of the day can be difficult to capture. The majority of the land is flat and sparse. The16 hour drive to Karijini, one of my favourite spots in WA, follows a straight road and the landscape changes so slowly it’s hard to notice. We have so many spectacular sights, but they feel so spaced out it takes great effort to find them. 

It took exploring other countries and returning to this rich, diverse, spacious, ancient, red rock country to fully appreciate it. And to finally see what made this place so special. The wildflowers, the gum trees, the kookaburras, the far-reaching ocean. It was all so normal and unchanging in my childhood. In my adulthood I see how old this place is, and the countless stories the landscape has to tell. 

- Is there a creative community in Western Australia? 

Perth has an amazing creative community. I think because it’s so isolated out here, it’s led to a creative explosion. We can’t just easily flit off to other cities to get our fix so we’ve had to create a thriving community right here. We’re a growing city, so we’re a bit behind the rest of the world, but everything is so close knit. Everyone knows someone who knows someone. Plus Brett from Kath and Kim lives just up the road from me, so you know that says a lot about what a happening place Perth is. 

- Can you tell us a little about the image on the cover of Lodestars Anthology Australia? Where was it taken and what was the day like?

I was hiking the Larapinta Trail through the Northern Territory. I had to carry 6 litres of water that day as there was no water for the next day and a half. I was walking slowly, trying to enjoy the day despite my heavy bag. I hit a hill and trudged up it. I was sheltered from the wind on the way up but the sun beat down relentlessly. I reached the saddle and put my bag down to have a rest before walking down the other side. The wind blew past me, cooling me down while I peeled an orange. The juice ran down my arms as I bit into it and the sugar gave me a needed hit. I sat for 15 minutes enjoying the view, loving the unexpected colour of purple that covered this landscape thanks to the Mulla Mulla plant endemic to semi-arid Australian landscapes. It was midday so I didn’t expect to be able to capture a nice image. Eventually I had to get my camera out and give it a shot, even though I knew it wouldn’t be worth it. The outback is made for midday photography though. The landscape comes alive beneath that bright and cloudless sky. With no high mountains there’s no intense shadows to worry about, and as I snapped it I knew it was an image I was really proud of. It was just so unexpected. 

- What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given - when it comes to photography, life, anything really? 

There was a poem on the back of my childhood homes bathroom door called ‘I would pick more daisies next time’. It was a poem I would read every day. It was a poem about not living a life of regret. 

Here’s a little excerpt: “I’d make more mistakes next time. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would perhaps have more actual troubles, but I’d have fewer imaginary ones.”

I was thinking about it recently, how much that message has impacted my life. I’m really thankful that mum chose that poem. 

- What would your younger self think of the work you're doing now? 

My dreams have changed a lot over the years. I am living a life I never expected, one that has taught me so many amazing things. I know little Lou would be proud of the human she was going to become. And yet I know I gave up dreams and wishes to follow this path, I gave up my community and dreams of being a filmmaker to follow a more isolated creative path. One that is driven by travel. I have no regret but I don’t want to let the path of least resistance guide my life, and so I try to dip back into my younger dreams and make sure I’m still exploring them. Creating stories, illustrating, exploring other forms of creativity. And trying hard to find that community again after so long on the road. 

Simon Bray

While travelling upon Lake Garda for the Italy issue of Lodestars Anthology (out later this month) we first noticed the photographs of Simon Bray, who just so happened to be snapping the same subject as us. Drawn to his beautiful use of light, and ability to make this perfectly popular corner of Italy seem amazingly calm, we had to ask a few questions about his work ... and Italy of course.

What do you love about photography?

I have a desire to create images and often I won’t be able to rest until I’ve taken them, so in that sense, each image serves it’s purpose in feeding that personal need; it’s a scratch that needs to be itched, very therapeutic. At the same time, I know that each image holds a varying level of potential. I love that an image can evoke something in a person, a response or an emotion, that will be so vastly different to what I, as the photographer, see, or what anybody else might see in it. We’re all made up of a combination of our own history, cultural influences, our social upbringing, the places that we’ve been and the people that we’ve met. That can mean that an image that I’ve taken may mean absolutely nothing to you, but there might be one image, for reasons known or unknown, that you connect with, that sparks something, a thought or memory, or that you just enjoy visually because of the colours, tones, composition or subject matter. Each image has that potential power.

I’ve also been thinking about imagery and timescales recently. Photography is a long game. I’ll often think about the fact that the images I take may well outlast me, and that as much value as there is in viewing them now, I hope that the generations that supersede me will find them interesting in many years to come.

Can you remember the first photograph you took?

Not as such, although the first time I got really excited about an image was a photograph I took of a hummingbird hawk-moth in the French Alps on holiday. I was probably in my early teens and using my first 35mm film camera. Getting the film developed and looking at the print, and seeing that I’d somehow managed to capture it’s motion and movement felt quite incredible.

What inspires your work?

I’d like to say that each location I work in acts as the pure influence for the images I create, but I know that’s not totally true. I’ll certainly feed off the elements before me, but there are so many subconscious factors behind the decisions I make, if I’ve seen a similar image before I’ll need to decide whether I want to embrace that and create it for myself, or try something different. I suppose everything I read about photography, and all the images that I take in will influence my sense of how to portray subject matter in both potentially helpful or unhelpful ways. To a greater extent, it’s the light that will inspire me. I won’t often stop to make a landscape picture except for the fact that the light is particularly interesting, and my discernment for that is certainly something that has developed over the past couple of years and something I’m trying to encourage.

How would you define your style?

One of the most significant factors is space. Living in a city, I’m constantly yearning for greater physical space, so once I’m somewhere that I feel that greater sense of freedom, I can’t help but let that come through in the images, which often manifests itself in the form of negative space using sky or water. I was discussing this recently with a friend, how I won’t be proactively making decisions about an image as I take it. Previously, I will have taken a lot more time to consider the image I want before I shoot it, perhaps for technical reasons, or just slow decision making, but now it seems to come far more naturally and I’ll work quite quickly. I think that’s how my personal style will be encouraged, simply through the practice of taking images, although I still feel I need to slow everything down a bit! I’m trying to develop my understanding of how to create more concise images that dig deeper, to avoid simple surface level imagery and I’m sure taking more time to consider each image will aid that.

Does travel influence your work in any way?

Absolutely. I live in central Manchester, which really doesn’t provide much to feed my desire to create landscape images, so it’s almost a necessity for me to travel. I really savour the opportunity to explore a new location with my camera. There’s an excitement that comes with visiting a certain place in a certain season and capturing it in it’s current state, knowing that other photographers will visit later in the day, week, month or years later and see it in a completely different way. Landscapes evolve and the light makes all the difference. I’m not usually able to return on multiple occasions, but in many ways it’s a privilege to preserve a place on any given day through my images, it forces me to work with the environment I’m in and create in the moment, avoiding any preconceptions of what I’d like to create, which can be distracting.

What makes Italy such an interesting subject?

It’s a popular holiday destination for a reason! The combination of the the incredible food, weather and variety of scenery make it such a special place for me. The area surrounding Lake Garda is an alpine wonderland. Exploring the mountains and lakes was such a privilege, so many breathtaking views, and even though it was warm, everything was washed in this amazing blue light, probably the moisture in the air, it made for some stunning scenes to photograph. I’d recommend visiting in the off seasons in order to appreciate the true sense of space without the crowds of tourists, because there are some stunning small towns and villages, where I could just sit and watch the world go by for days with a glass of wine and some fresh pasta!

Has there been a particularly memorable project either past or present?

I’m currently working on my first long-term project, a collaboration with a Manchester based artist called Tom Musgrove. We’re visiting a selection of the most stunning locations across the UK, and each creating a piece for each location, which we’ll be exhibiting side-by-side at a show in the autumn. It’s taken nearly 2 years already, and it’s been great to visit stunning places that are only a few hours away. Our most recent trip to Glen Coe in Scotland was just incredible, the scenery, the light, the people we met, the conversations it sparked, the whole experience was very memorable. I also get to watch my work evolve, which is very important, but the most influential element has been the development of my relationship with Tom, the opportunity to discuss the discourse of our work, our varying methods and explore the motivations behind each piece we create. Tom takes his time on each trip to sketch, which has really forced me to slow down and appreciate the changing elements and light within the landscape.

What is your dream subject?

I don’t know if I have one at the moment, maybe that will develop over time. For now, any scenic location that I have the chance to explore with my camera in my own time would be a dream come true! Every commission I receive or project that I set out to do furthers my work, it’s a fresh challenge that I want to fully embrace. I still feel like I’m defining my practice and as a result, my style or imagery, maybe one day that will feel more concrete, or maybe I’ll just keep trying new things!

A selection of Simon's landscape work is up at www.simonbray.co.uk and can also be spired on Instagram.