About Us – Photography Country Elders

Photography/ Country/ Elders Tribute

History, a further look back to how Original Tribes started, when I was studying at the University of the Northern Territory back in 1999 (photography and Digital Media), currently called Charles Darwin University, I had the opportunity to meet with Indigenous elders who were artist from the East Kimberley of Australia. I found out that I had family links with them through my grandmothers side and we soon formed a close friendship and I was acknowledged as family and ended up becoming the driver, cook, coffee/ tea, photographer document paintings and I also helped with preparing the ochre paints for the master painters. I got to work with brilliant and talented artists who had tribal links to the East Kimberley and the Northern Territory. It was such a great honour to work with these elders from 1999 to around 2005.

Some of the artists I worked with (some now deceased):

* Paddy Bedford
* Rusty Peterson
* Timmy Timms
* Freddy Timms
* Peggy Patrick
* Phyllis Thomas
* And many other

During the time I have known my extended family in the East Kimberley I have been inspired to use my photography skills to help document some amazing stories re-told by Aboriginal elders. When elders talked about country and the old days, how they lived and how law was really strong, but one story that seemed to be told with a lot of passion from elders and not believed in the wider community was the massacre stories, this really upset a lot of tribal elders in the Kimberley. They told me that some “these gardiya (white people) saying we are liars and those massacres never happened, when we talk about what happened they say we lying”. I was inspired to document these stories with photo’s and after visiting these massacre sites with elders in the East Kimberley, I documented some of these places and exhibited the work to help tell the story and make sure the history known. One of these massacre site has this huge Boab Tree and RIP sign (Mistake Creek massacre site), not far from a place called Crocodile hole.

Paddy Bedford boomerangs from Bedford Down country East Kimberley, a gift for traveling withPaddy back out to his country 1999 and 2000 (I took him back to his country on two times). I wanted to document these rough hard history stories through the camera, photography. The landscape in the country shows scars from the past, and there is a story about how a picture can tell 1000s of words.

I used to drive 1,000s km from Darwin Northern Territory to East Kimberley to pick up elders from Gidja country and we decided to go to Bedford Downs to document one of the massacre sites. I arranged to pick up Paddy Bedford and his manager Tony Oliver and we drive out to Bedford Downs, this was the first time Paddy seen his country for 20 or 30 years, he had tears in his eyes, he was so happy to be back home on country. I recall when I picked him up he could just walk little bit, his feet and legs looked weak and tired, he was keen to go as he slowly prepared his swag and big mug (cup) for tea and coffee. I always remember when we got to his country, he had this new spring in his feet (his energy come back) and he had the best memory for country and at times I questioned, maybe its other way around this country got strong connection with him and he has strong connection with his country.

Once I completed taking the photos I exhibited the Gija tribe elder’s stories for massacres in the East Kimberley at the Australian Centre for Photography in Sydney (add photo), exhibition titled Seeing Through Landscape and the University in Darwin, Charles Darwin University. And later I was given permission by elders to put up website to acknowledge our history and our country and culture and to create a small animation story for one of the massacre sites. The website link is here:

http://aboriginalancestors.anat.org.au

I would also like to acknowledge and say thanks to ANAT (Australian Network for Art and Technology) for helping Aboriginal elders to have an opportunity to share our stories from the past so we can focus on healing. And another amazing thing that happened, elders from Gija country started to paint the history of the massacre sites, and Freddy Timms (deceased) started to paint stories about an Indigenous warrior named Major of the East Kimberley who was also referred to as Ned Kelly, bit like a East Kimberley version of Ned Kelly (old time Australian outlaw from down south of Australia).

I later found out that my grandfather Billy Duncan my grandmother Jessie Davidson Hampton younger brother was living in the East Kimberley and I told him to learn to startpainting, get in to it, I remember saying to him you know Paddy Bedford, Billy reckon yeah I know him. He been painting stories for country, he was making sometimes $1,000 or $1,500 per painting and now his paintings worth $10,000 to $150,000. Billy wife was also painting andsaid yeah I tried to tell him before come and do painting with us, Billy confirmed ok I try learnpainting and I got a lot of story for country.

I use to listen to Billy always talk about country, we have tribal lands near the border of East Kimberley and Northern Territory, this country is known as Moonbool and Mulula Springs. I was lucky to get a grant application from the Australian Council of the Arts so I could go back out to country with Billy Duncan and his son, document country and paint country. Mulula Springs in the middle of the roughest country, and there was this warm spring water that flowed naturally out of the ground, it wasn’t very big water and my grandfather and his son still remember exactly where it is and that reminded me of Paddy Bedford connection to land or is the land connected to good hearted people, it takes care of you. When we got to this country at Mulula, it was isolated and a really beautiful small river that had these grey light coloured rocks near the river and strong natural ochre small hills in background with gumtrees and bush land, only thing we forgot to bring was fishing hand line because there was many nice brim in this river.

We camped for the night and drive back to Kununurra, on the way back we decided to go short cut,omg, that road has never been used for about 50 years, as we drove on the old dirt road that roadstarted to fade more and you could see new trees started to grow in that old dirt road that has hardly been used. And then next thing you know we driving in scrub country, driving through old dry rockycreeks and through spinifex grass that was higher than my Toyota Hilux bonnet. Below is a quick link to some of those photos of country.

And we ended up getting lost, and couldn’t go any further because Nigra River was too high to cross over by 4WD and to many high cliffs and small mountains, rough country, so we had to back track. Being lost in the middle of no where, easy for panic feeling to start, (running on empty and no spare tyre) then you need to calm down and make effort to find way back home. We did manage to find track back and made it home safe. A lot of good memories with elders and they inspired me to be creative with art and retell stories that need to be told. Tribute to the elders and country.