Broken Hill

Michael is a Sydney-based Photographer specialising in black and white film and crafting traditional analogue silver gelatine prints.

Visiting Broken Hill was a way of exploring the sense of time and presence created by mining. The process of mining is visibly present in the housing and cars, patched, and abandoned in Broken Hill, decaying and slowly returning to the earth. The wind, and the clouds and the sky are very important, as the process is about time and weathering. Close to the source of the mine at Broken Hill, are all the artefacts of the era in which the town was thriving. In such a dry climate, the rate of decay is slowed, leaving these artefacts intermingled with rocks, trees, and sky, expressing the slow movement of time. The look of the images; high contrast, harshness, grain, and bold textures express a feeling of the place reflected through the film photography.