Life in the stockyards: the beauty of the bush, captured by Graziher readers

I’m a born and bred Perenjori local, growing up in the area and still living here now. Perenjori is in the northern Wheatbelt of Western Australia, among wildflower country. I currently work on a nearby property as a farmhand, as well as running my photography business. I love being able to combine these two things that I love and document rural life as we experience it. It’s something really special.

One afternoon during shearing, while getting the sheep penned up and ready for the next day, I brought my camera with me into the yards. There’s often such beautiful light in the sheep yards with the dust being illuminated in the golden sunlight. I wanted to capture a little bit of that and the chaos that shearing time brings.

I previously worked part-time for Charlie’s family while I was finishing my agribusiness degree externally. Now, I mainly work as a rural and regional photographer in Queensland and when I’m editing from home, I’ll make sure everyone is well-fed, or I’ll jump into the yards or on the tail of a muster if they are really short-handed. 

Mostly, I’ll be hiding somewhere around the yards to document everyone in their element. My favourite thing to photograph is people doing what they love on the land, which is usually Charlie working his horses. This image of the horses (above) was taken on the Deardon family’s breeder block, Yambutta, near Quilpie in Queensland. We take the horses with us when we go out there to muster, brand calves and preg-test, and I always take my camera to get action shots of the team working together and doing what they love. 

In 2019, I completed my first year of study at Charles Sturt University, on campus in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales. I have been trying to get down to Wagga from Queensland since 2020, but with all the COVID-19 uproar, I couldn’t do so until this year. One of my good friends from uni, Tash Hurley, works at Forbes Livestock and Agency Co, and saw I was heading down her way, so she contacted me to organise a two-day shoot with the company to get some updated images of the auctioneers for their website (top of page). 

I grew up on the rural outskirts of Perth, enjoying an active lifestyle, riding horses and motorbikes, wrangling donkeys, getting dirt and mud everywhere. In 2016, I decided to leave home for the bush and moved 1000 kilometres away to a little place called Minilya Bridge Roadhouse. I stayed there for a year and loved every minute of it. I was very lucky to meet so many great people and that’s where my photography journey began. I just knew I had to document this life. I was extremely fortunate to participate in helicopter musters — which has kicked off my determination to get my pilot’s licence — and I loved it. 

Last year I took some time off work to help my family on their stations in the Kimberley region. We mustered, drafted, weaned, vaccinated — you name it, we did it. I’m sure I was more a hindrance than a help, but I met so many awesome people along the way who I now consider lifelong mates! I am forever grateful for the amazing photographic opportunities.

Ever since I was a kid, I have visited the north every year, and it really is where my heart calls home. Any chance I get, I’m back up in the Kimberley. We had plans to move permanently to the north, but unfortunately they didn’t pan out as I had hoped.

A few years ago, my husband and I purchased a little bit of acreage in the Wheatbelt, which is where we live now. It’s not big enough to run any stock, but I’d like to get back into horses again. Eventually I’d like to stop the full-time job I’m in now, purchase a bigger property to live and work on the land. What that looks like for us, I’m not sure yet — but maybe it will finally be my permanent move back to the north.

For the past 12 months I’ve been living and working on a cattle station here in south-west Queensland as a first-year jillaroo. It’s been a hurdle of learning curves and I’ve loved it; the lifestyle and opportunities compare to none. 

Days have been spent mustering in paddocks, for cattle to be yarded up and processed. Now on the final stretch of our second round of mustering, things are beginning to wrap up for another year — steers are soon to be assessed, sold and trucked out. It’s a steady rhythm of go-go-go, and a life constant with red dirt and cattle out here in mulga country.