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In my first blog post I tell you how I recreated Midnight Oil’s famous album cover
As a teenage boy, I hated dancing, like a lot of other teenage boys I suspect.
Growing up in Australia during the 1980’s, I had a saviour. Peter Garrett, the energetic front man of ‘Midnight Oils’. Peter has a unique dancing style, and that is putting it mildly. But his style was easy for me to copy, so thank you Peter, teenage awkwardness solved!
Ever since I have loved their music. I also remember each album cover had an amazing landscape image on the cover.
Thirty years later when I fell in love with landscape photography, Midnight Oil’s images were my starting point. In this blog post I walk you through how I found the location of the photo and attempted to replicate it.
Out of all the Midnight Oil album covers, for me the cover of ‘Diesel and Dust’ is the one that comes to mind. This is the photo I want to replicate.
Image copyright (Midnight Oil, 1987)
Early in my career I won a $4000 prize for one of my photos. Part of this prize was to spend a day with Ken Duncan, perhaps Australia’s best known landscape photographer. As part of his presentation he played the film clip for Midnight Oil’s ‘One Country’. It turns out Ken was their photographer.
The video clip, which I’ve embedded below, shows Peter Garrett singing to a montage of Ken’s images. I’m sure you agree the images are incredible. I really like Ken’s natural style, he has definitely had a huge influence on my own style.
I always assumed the house was in the middle of The Western Desert. One day a friend told it’s just two hours north of Adelaide in a town called Burra. The house is generally known as ‘The Midnight Oil House’ and is one of Burra’s main tourist attractions.
I was booked for a photoshoot with Adelaide Uni in a town just south of Burra. I decided to pack the swag and head to Burra afterwards to check it out. I hadn’t googled the house before I went on my trip and I’m so glad I didn’t, it would have ruined my first look. It was not what I was expecting, a real surprise. It was in the middle of a lush green field with rolling hills in the background. Quite beautiful really.
I was booked for a photoshoot with Adelaide Uni in a town just south of Burra. I decided to pack the swag and head to Burra afterwards to check it out. I hadn’t googled the house before I went on my trip and I’m so glad I didn’t, it would have ruined my first look. It was not what I was expecting, a real surprise. It was in the middle of a lush green field with rolling hills in the background. Quite beautiful really.
Head over to my gallery page where all my landscapes are available in high resolution to download.
I’ve created a video that shows my journey to re-create Ken’s Photo, I hope you enjoy it.
I think I did a pretty good job. It’s not as good as Ken’s, but I have excuses! Firstly, I was unable to get onto the property and secondly the condition of the property was different to Ken’s original.
Who knows, maybe one day I will have another try.
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14 Responses
Wow Andy, this is just awesome!
Hey Tom, thanks for checking it out. Have you seen the house before?
An excellent tribute. The “Diesel & Dust” cover is an iconic image of it’s time.
Hey matt, good too hear from year. Yes, a staple for blokes out age!
I heard Ken Duncan talking about the house. He went back to take more photos of it and got told off by the owners. When he explained who he was they relaxed. Apparently it is undergoing some deterioration. He went to Midnight Oil and raised some funds for restoration.
Hi Doc, that’s interesting. If I were the owner, I would open p the paddock for a ‘donation’, I’m sure they’d make some money.
Great to read all the background Andy, next time definitely use your own dancing, I’ve heard amazing stories 😉
Ross, the stories are all untrue! They were the days before iphone, so it can’t be proved.
Great story and piece of work Andy… very creative.
Thanks Al, hope you are gearing up for the belated TDF?
I had a poster of that album cover which completely covered my teenager bedroom wall. So I was stoked when I found the house when driving back from Woomera one time. Photo was taken using Kodak film…
I agree Jason, it’s a pretty cool thing for us old blokes to see, the orignal was using Kodak?
What a cool adventure, love your work Andy.
now to planning the next one..