In a few months, it’ll be two years since I last photographed the camels on Cable Beach. This job was an invaluable step along my path as a photographer and gave me confidence and foundational skills to pursue photography as a career.
I can’t say when I’ll next have the opportunity to run barefoot down Cable Beach, with camera in hand and salty air filling my lungs. But in the gloom of a long European winter, the scene often replays in my head behind closed eyes.
Hard as it was to leave this job, the climate, the people, the beach, this was a move that had to be made. One that I’ve tried but failed to regret. I could never better myself as a photographer, a person, by staying where I was. Life was too comfortable, too easy.
But I feel no guilt in reminiscing, in longing for an easy life of again running across a beach resembling an upside down sky and squinting into the blinding tropical light. Trying to get that perfect shot.
I never did get that perfect shot, I’m sure many photographers feel they never will. But this series of photographs is about as close as I feel I came.
I hope you enjoy.
As always, feedback is much appreciated. Do you have a favourite? Have you been to Broome, or ridden these camels? What was the experience of a sunset on Cable Beach like for you?