Crafting a compelling photo essay

Come on a journey with me and get an insight into how a connection online led me to a wonderful opportunity for an extended stay at a 28,500 acre rural and remote sheep station and led me to create a photo essay. Callubri Station is located in Western NSW, about a 10-hour drive west of our home in Sydney. The station is run by Mike Armstrong—a fourth generation farmer—and his wife Angie. After our initial connection online, we had a few phone conversation before my partner and I were invited to visit and camp on the land in our motorhome.

In a nutshell, I would document the shearing through my writing and photography in exchange for camping on their land and access to amenities. My partner Steven would help by taking video content. I was also invited to run my first photo workshop while Angie provided the venue and the food. During our stay, we would have full access to photograph while the shearing was in full swing and Angie volunteered to show us around the huge property.

I hope that by sharing my experience  it will inspire you to capture your own images for creating compelling photo essays.

As photographers we are expected to capture images that can stand on their own. When stories are complicated and layered, conveying the emotion, drama and narrative in an impactful image isn’t always possible. This is where a photo essay comes into its own. While this might be a cliche, we all know that essentially, a photo essay needs a beginning, a middle and an end. The beginning gives us the context and a glimpse into what is yet to be revealed. The middle an opportunity to see both the action and to drill down to some of the detail. The end of the essay is where we wrap it all up and share both a climax and a conclusion.

I find the prospect of crafting a narrative with a collection of carefully curated images both challenging and exciting. Challenging because choosing a series of emotive images so the story is easily interpreted by an observer with no prior knowledge and unfamiliar with its context isn’t easy. Exciting because such a project gives me both purpose and a point of focus for my photography.

The most quintessential of all photo essays and one that springs to mind instantly is that of documenting the joys and momentary pangs of sadness at a wedding. From ‘behind the scenes’ shots of the bride getting ready, to the exchanging of vows and the final scenes of disarray at the reception, it is something we all connect with. Photo essays have been used for generations to capture personal experiences and adventures, to document festivals and protest marches, and to explore social issues such as homelessness and hunger.

The photo essay sits quite comfortably in the genre of photojournalism, where the horrors of war or changes in the landscape due to climate change have on occasion been instrumental in galvanising action and changing the course of history. Sometimes, they just shine a light on events that are completely outside our experience.

The first step to creating a photo essay is to find your why. A good tip to discovering your why is to follow your passion.

I love combining my love for travel and photography with my desire to share stories of regional Australia. The stories might take the form of a blog post with images but it can also be in the form of a photo essay where the images are the dominant part of the story. While much of the food we eat and the clothes we wear have their origins in regional Australia, these areas remain largely outside the experience of people in our cities. Sharing these experiences always resonates with my readers, and my global social media following.

Life on a farm is completely different to working in a city office and comes with its own set of challenges. Most people who live in Sydney have little knowledge of what it takes to put food on their dinner table or where it came from. I am hoping to help bridge that gap a little with my photo story and writing.

I often find mind mapping a good exercise to consider, when thinking about ‘My Why’ and discovering the next project to focus on.

Getting an intimate and authentic glimpse into the life of an Aussie farmer and learning the stories of the shearers was an eye-opening experience for me. It also has overlaps with the town planning work that I do with my partner and the new paradigms we are exploring for how we continue to live on the land with better connection to where our food, water and energy come from. This is definitely part of ‘My Why’.

I can’t stress the importance of understanding your project. As someone who has come here with little experience of shearing, there is much to learn. I’ve done as much research as I could prior to coming here, reading every bit of information on the Callubri Station website. But that has only given me a glimpse.

There is a great vibe in the shearing shed when we arrive. The music is blaring, the wool flying everywhere and above this ding, I can hear the kelpies barking. These shearers have come from around the state and will stay in the area till this job is done. My challenge was to capture everything I observed during my time here, but then select 10 images that would inform my photo essay.

But the first step was building relationships with the team so I knew more about this life and they began to trust my presence in their space. Then I could be a fly on the wall and the would go about their business and hardly notice I was there.

We spend a lot of time chatting with station owners Mike and Angie who take us around the property separately and share some of the challenges of living in rural Australia. The type of farming they do here is dryland farming, with no irrigation, and completely dependent on the weather.

They have many balls in the air, from managing the 12,000 sheep on site for merino wool production, to sowing and harvesting crops, for feed and for sale, while running a luxury accommodation and catering business in parallel with raising their young son.

At the heart of everything they do is their vision— “To develop a sustainable, diverse and innovative agritourism business, that reflects their individual strengths and interests whilst building a better shared understanding between primary producers and urban consumers.”

It seems to marry nicely with ‘My Why’.

As we talk and drive around the property and get to know the shearing team, I realise that while I came here with the intent of documenting the process of shearing, there are many stories to be told.

There are the stories of the shearing culture and how that is changing as more and more women take up this vocation. There’s the stories of the shearer’s nomadic lifestyle as they travel from one station to another. There are the challenges of dryland farming in an area with no option for irrigation due to mostly marginal rainfall coupled with occasional extreme flooding. The contemporary story of transition to more sustainable farming practices in a changing climate where even this concept has been politicised by people disconnected from the realities of what life is really like in regional Australia. Then of course there is the price of wool and why the demand for natural fibres such as merino wool is changing in the world obsessed with fast fashion. There were stories I didn’t even think about like the bond between the kelpies and their masters.

As I start shooting, I keep digging some more. I am absolutely fascinated by what I am learning. Shearing culture has come a long way from the days when the men would yell, ‘ducks on the pond’ as a signal that a woman had entered the shed and the swearing should stop. Women are embracing shearing as a vocation both in Australia and New Zealand and I notice an easy camaraderie between the men and women on this team. Shearers are paid well in Australia, making about AU$1000/day, depending on how many sheep they shear. But the work is very dependent on the vagaries of the weather and there are no guarantees of a stable career.

The weather is not the only challenge in this industry. Shearers in Australia spend much of the year, travelling from one station to the next and many have a long drive on Friday night if they wish to spend the weekend with their families. The work is physically hard and takes it toll as you age, when you might find yourself back at the sorting table where you often start your journey as a teenager.

Bring an open mind to your photo essay project. Let your initial ideas evolve as you start to understand all the contributing narratives to the story you came to document. My tip to you is to follow your instincts—take lots of photos to explore all angles of the story and keep capturing as many images as you can. This way, you can sift through them at your leisure and start to fine-tune the story you wish to tell. You many even end up with smaller stories and even portfolios that could be useful for different end goals.

I was conscious that I was in a very busy workplace and was always respectful of their space and made sure I did not get in the way of their work. By Day Two, I had formed good connections with the shearers, and they invited me to join them for ‘smoko’ and a chat. Besides the main break for lunch, there is a morning and afternoon ‘smoko’—a break for tea and to smoke a cigarette. This was a chance for me to dig a little deeper and collect a few personal stories and form personal relationships with some of the team. If time permits, I would suggest that you don’t start shooting till these relationships have been developed at least a little.

Because the shearing took place over more than a week, there was time for me to observe what was happening and to try out various lenses and compositions. It was tricky shooting because the action was fast paced; the space constrained; and the lighting challenging. All the images were shot hand-held of course, so the most important setting was my shutter speed, to ensure the images were not blurry.

I used my Canon R6 and a variety of Canon lenses. The RF RF24-105mm f/4 and my RF 70-200mm F/2.8 lenses were good for both portraits and shots of the shearing while my EF 16-24mm f/2.8 came in handy when I wanted to capture  a wider scene. I also used my drone for capturing some of the scenes on the farm and my RF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 telephoto lens for wildlife shots.

Given that I travelled here by road, I was able to bring all my lenses with me. If you are flying to a location, then you many have to make some strategic decisions about what gear you wish to take.

As I shoot my images, I make sure to save and back them up on two external drives, an essential part of the gear I carry with me. They are saved into folders arranged by date and description at the end of each day. I use Adobe Lightroom to rate and catalogue these images enabling me to be selective in the images that are chosen for editing.

As I have shot a diverse range of images, I will eventually select about 50-100 images from which my photo essay images are selected. These images will continue to be culled till I have whittled it down to about 25 images, usually about twice as many as needed for my final series. These images will be edited using a consistent style, so they can form the selection from which I will draw the final images for the essay. These 25 images are then sorted into three piles—beginning, middle and end.

For this series, I decided that a monochrome theme would be best suited to tell this story. I would also only focus on the images taken in the shearing shed. These images were all shot under similar lighting conditions and have a consistent look. Converting them to black and white also gives them consistency and strength, eliminating distractions and enabling us to focus on the drama and emotion, an essential ingredient in the story I wish to convey. The black and white theme gives the series a timeless quality—a reminder that this is a long-standing tradition in Outback Australia.

There were many images that could be used to set the scene and give a sense of the place. There is a lot that happens outside the shearing shed before the sheep are sheared but given this is a series of 10 images, I have chosen to exclude them from the series. The images of the sheep being led to the holding pens outside have a different feel to those that are captured inside the shearing shed.

As I observe I realise that the smaller sheep are sheared first with the bigger sheep sheared later on in the process, so I realise that some of my beginning images might only be captured on Day 2 or 3. Spending time and being observant is key to capturing all the action needed for your photo story.

After going through all of my images, I decided that an image from the holding pen inside the shearing shed would be my first image followed closely by a few shearing images of the larger sheep would set the scene for this photo essay.

On Day 3 I decided to document some portraits of the shearers, focussing on individual tasks such as the shearing, the cleaning of the blades and the men at work on the wool press.

Capturing such images is really important for a photo essay but they can also be used on their own to create a smaller portfolio series for competition. The images are all linked by a common thread—A Shearer’s Way of Life. My series of 4 images submitted to the Australian Photography Magazine was rewarded with a runner up place in 2024.

The strength in this portrait series comes from the freedom and time to make authentic connections with the shearers and showing an interest in their lives and building trust. I cannot stress the importance of this more.

Many of these shearers have started their careers young. They point out a young teenager who is learning the tricks of the trade on the job. One of the older guys tells me that he got into shearing when he was a young teenager as it was also an excuse to leave school. But the work takes a physical toll. He has come full circle and finds himself back at the sorting table, where he started. This is where the wool is separated according to its qualities, as there are variations between colour, crimp, strength, length and elasticity.

The last few images that make up the end of the story are equally important. I observe that everyone seems a little more relaxed as we get to the end. I want to celebrate all the characters who made up this story and convey this sense of celebration and the climax of completing such a huge project.

In my final portrait shot, I chose to combine the bale of wool that was the product of their endeavours with all of the shearing team standing around it. I hope you see the sense of camaraderie and team work and a little bit of the cheekiness that makes up the characters in the Outback of Australia.

There were many other images that could have been used such as the truck rolling out of the yard, but once again, the vibe and style outside wasn’t consistent with the shearing shed activity.

Once my editing is completed, I might print the 25 images, and lay them out on a table. Then I begin the process of selecting and discarding. Sometimes, I might ask a trusted friend or my partner to also select their top 10, quizzing them on why they selected those particular images.

Going through this process of elimination I finally end up with my series. For the series to balance, I actually end up with 11 images. Different combinations of the final 25 images can be used later on for various competitions. It is a wonderful feeling to come away with a collection of images I can be proud of after our station stay.

Embarking on a journey of crafting a photo essay is a wonderful way to give some direction and focus for your creative journey.

Once you have researched a project and scoped out a location, you can set some boundaries around the project, which can be comforting. This also helps you to not be overwhelmed by the possibilities. I find myself often distracted by the myriad of opportunities I am presented with. Given that the photo story is only one of many projects that I do, I enjoy the distraction.

Embrace all the opportunities that present themselves if they resonate with you.

While at Callubri Station, I had many other opportunities that had nothing to do with my photo essay. These ranged from shooting wildlife, capturing sunrises and sunsets as well as the night sky, and lots of opportunities to take some aerial images with my drone. I embraced them all, even when they had nothing to do with putting a photo essay together. These images are also useful for my client who is keen to expand her catalogue with not just shearing images but the nature shots and images of family.

If you stay open to all the opportunities that come your way, stay flexible and curious, you will come away with some wonderful memories and images. It may even lead to future collaboration opportunities both with your client but as a spin-off to something new. Angie has indicated she has many ideas of how we might collaborate in the future.

The final stages of creating a photo series is to write some captions and an introduction to the project and fine tune your title. The title of this series is: “A Shearer’s Life Out West’.

Then of course you set the images free. Deciding how best to share them with the outside world is up to you.

The images can be shared as digital images on the internet, entered for competitions, printed and hung up in a gallery. They can form the basis for a magazine article, a blog post or if the series is large enough you might even publish them as a photo book. My images will also be used by Angie on her website, for flyers she might put together for future events and on social media.

A photo essay is a great way to evolve and grow as a photographer while immersing yourself in a world that might be completely new to you. I hope I have inspired you to give it a go.