Katie Chown knew just what she wanted to do when she saw this deep pool framed by an amphitheatre of 150m high cliffs, a little way downstream from Jim Jim Galls in Kakadu. She wanted to strip off, dive in and perform an underwater ballet, like a “supernatural nymph”, she says, like from one of those old Romantic paintings. To hell with the signs about crocodiles.
Photographer Darren Clark, who snapped this shot from the waters edge, met Chown four years ago, 'They fell in love' - Only problem is, she lives in Perth, where she’s a contemporary dancer and a student of occupational therapy. He left his native Geelong in 2000 to go walkabout and never stopped. He’s spent the past 18 months taking photographs in the remotest parts of the Northen Territory, living out of a 4WD stacked with weeks worth of provisions, recharging his cameras and computer with solar panels. “Totally committed” is how he describes his approach to his vocation. Still, they catch up several times a year. And when they do, their artistic spirits always collide in unusual ways. They’ll be in Kings Park at dawn, say, or at some Outback rock art site and Chown will start dancing, a spontaneous act of self-expression, channelling her emotional reaction to her environment while Clark photographs it. It sounds a bit out there, but it means they mark their time together with something more than your average holiday snaps. Sometimes, of course, one must suffer for one’s art. “The water at Jim Jim Falls was absolutely freezing, it took my breath away,” says Chown, 26. “And it was really deep, that black section below me was like an abyss. The whole time i was thinking, “Lets just get this done, get it over with...” ROSS BILTON |
