The summer of 2019–2020 is one that Australians will never forget. Across the country, bushfires were consuming forests, destroying homes and devastating communities. The skies turned an eerie shade of brown, the air was thick with smoke, and even hundreds of kilometres from the flames, there was no escaping the feeling that the whole world was burning.
For me, that feeling went much deeper than the landscape. While the world around me was burning, my own world was burning too.
At the time, I was still serving in the Air Force, trying to balance the demands of a challenging career with the responsibilities of raising a young family. My health had been deteriorating for years, but the pressure to keep performing never seemed to ease. I had spent much of my life pushing through difficult situations, believing that determination and hard work could overcome almost anything.
But there comes a point where there is simply nothing left to give.
My family was struggling, my health was suffering, and I felt an enormous responsibility to hold everything together. The demands of work didn't stop because I was unwell, and the needs of my family couldn't wait until I had recovered. I was caught between two worlds that both needed more from me than I could provide.
Like the Australian landscape, I was being slowly consumed by pressures that seemed impossible to control.
It was during this extraordinary summer that I captured Amber Skies, Googong. The smoke from distant fires had transformed the familiar countryside into something almost unrecognisable. The sky was a deep, brooding brown, casting an unsettling warmth across the rolling hills.
Standing alone beneath that enormous sky was a eucalyptus tree.
There was something about that solitary tree that resonated with me. Surrounded by an atmosphere that seemed to threaten everything, it continued to stand. It couldn't escape the conditions around it. It simply had to endure them.
I recognised something of myself in that scene.
Photography had long been my way of stepping away from the pressures of life, finding moments of quiet when everything else felt overwhelming. Yet this photograph wasn't an escape from what I was experiencing. Instead, it seemed to reflect it back at me.
The colours were beautiful, but the circumstances that created them were devastating. The landscape was peaceful, yet the atmosphere was filled with danger. It was a contradiction that felt remarkably familiar.
The following day, the bushfires destroyed my aunt and uncle's home. Suddenly, the disaster that had seemed distant became deeply personal. Our family came together to help them clean up and begin the difficult process of recovering what they could. Amid the destruction, there was also something important for my children to witness: the way family and community can support one another when everything seems lost.
Looking back, I see Amber Skies as a photograph of a turning point in my life. At the time, I was still trying to convince myself that I could keep going, that I could somehow manage the demands of work, family and my deteriorating health.
But I was beginning to understand that endurance alone wasn't enough. Something needed to change.
The Australian bush eventually began to recover. New growth emerged from blackened trees, and the smoke slowly cleared from the skies. My own recovery would take longer, requiring difficult decisions about my health, career and the life I wanted for my family.
Today, this photograph reminds me of both the fragility and resilience of life. It is a reminder that even the strongest things have their limits, and that sometimes surviving means recognising when it is time to change.
The world was burning, and so was I. But neither of us would remain that way forever.
Amber Skies, Googong is available as a limited edition fine art print, produced and framed by me using museum-grade archival materials.