Category Archives: Portraits We had a rough start to the year in South Eastern Australia. Instead of fire-works and revelry on New Year’s Eve, the sports and school grounds near my house were full of displaced campers, forced north by the East Gippsland fires ravaging coastal Victoria. On what would ordinarily be one of their busiest nights, our pubs […]  There are always dilemmas around preserving age-old cultural traditions. One of the difficulties in safeguarding the unique practices and languages of the many tribal groups in Papua News Guinea is that their ritual dress relies heavily on indigenous birds, plants, and animals. In times past, the people living in small, relatively isolated clusters in the Papua […]  I always look forward to the annual Easter long-weekend Byron Bay Bluesfest. The environment is relaxed, and although the weather can be challenging, the music is always fine! As much as I love the opportunity to enjoy performers from around the world (e.g.: Spotlight on International Performers; and Dancing in the Dark), especially those I have loved […]  ‘Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.’ This sense of dislocation – in a positive way – often arises when travelling off the beaten track. In Southern Ethiopia, I was so far off the popular routes that most of the ‘highways’ I was on weren’t paved! Around the city of Arba Minch – […]  If I had to choose one word to describe the Mursi people of Ethiopia’s Omo Valley, I’d have to say “proud”. There are roughly 7,500 pastoralist Nilo-Saharan Mursi living across approximately 1900 square kilometres of semi-arid land in an isolated corner of southwestern Ethiopia, close to the border with South Sudan. A tall, good-looking people, […] |
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