I first saw Gerry in the Cappuccino strip in Fremantle. I was driving slowly through the strip and I saw this ferrel girl wearing outlandish clothes and chicken bones in her hair. I thought I'd love to photograph her but I couldn't just stop the car i the middle of traffic.
A few days later I'd gone for a bike ride and when I returned home I found Gerry inexplicably standing on the footpath gazing at our garden. I thought 'God works in strange ways; the stars must have aligned' We chatted for a bit and jerry agreed to let me photograph her.
While driving to York a week later Gerry told me of her traumatic and troubled life - having no father and losing her mother at ten, being expelled from school, involvement with drugs and having spent time as a professional protester. Gerry showed me her art sketches which showed artistic talent but were dark and macabre.
At coffee I asked her about her nose ring and the pain involved in the self-piercing. She then rolled up her sleeves to reveal deep thickened scars. She has been in a protest movement in the south-west if Western Australia when the bulldozers moved in to smash down the trees.
That night around the camp-fire she asked her fellow protesters to brand her with hot irons.
'Mother earth had suffered and i wanted to suffer along with Mother Earth' she told me.
What didn't fit the image was Gerry's voice. Cultured, melodious, warm; it juts didn't fit the image. I asked Gerry how it was that she possessed such a beautiful voice.
'I used to listen to the ABC every night in bed'
We climbed to the first floor of the Old Court House in York. I asked her to imagine that she was at a ball and a handsome man in uniform asked her to dance. She perfected a perfect curtsy. And smiled the smile of a tragic, wounded princess.
A year later I had a chance meeting with am older 'alternative' friend of Gerry. 'You know you changed her life' the woman said.
'What do you mean?' I asked.
''Just before you photographed her, Gerry had applied for a job working at Ada Rose (the local brothel). Then you took her to York, photographed her so beautifully and showed her the prints. A few days later the Madam from Ada Rose telephoned Gerry and told her she had a job, starting the next day. Gerry replied by saying she had changed her mind; she now valued her body differently.'
Gerry moved to Tasmania, git married, finished her art course in TAFE and settled down. Three years later she visited me again in Fremantle. The feral was gone. She looked like the girl next door.
The Zimmers Apprentices and singer songwriter Tony Dunkley have written a song The Wounded Princess based on this story.
A few days later I'd gone for a bike ride and when I returned home I found Gerry inexplicably standing on the footpath gazing at our garden. I thought 'God works in strange ways; the stars must have aligned' We chatted for a bit and jerry agreed to let me photograph her.
While driving to York a week later Gerry told me of her traumatic and troubled life - having no father and losing her mother at ten, being expelled from school, involvement with drugs and having spent time as a professional protester. Gerry showed me her art sketches which showed artistic talent but were dark and macabre.
At coffee I asked her about her nose ring and the pain involved in the self-piercing. She then rolled up her sleeves to reveal deep thickened scars. She has been in a protest movement in the south-west if Western Australia when the bulldozers moved in to smash down the trees.
That night around the camp-fire she asked her fellow protesters to brand her with hot irons.
'Mother earth had suffered and i wanted to suffer along with Mother Earth' she told me.
What didn't fit the image was Gerry's voice. Cultured, melodious, warm; it juts didn't fit the image. I asked Gerry how it was that she possessed such a beautiful voice.
'I used to listen to the ABC every night in bed'
We climbed to the first floor of the Old Court House in York. I asked her to imagine that she was at a ball and a handsome man in uniform asked her to dance. She perfected a perfect curtsy. And smiled the smile of a tragic, wounded princess.
A year later I had a chance meeting with am older 'alternative' friend of Gerry. 'You know you changed her life' the woman said.
'What do you mean?' I asked.
''Just before you photographed her, Gerry had applied for a job working at Ada Rose (the local brothel). Then you took her to York, photographed her so beautifully and showed her the prints. A few days later the Madam from Ada Rose telephoned Gerry and told her she had a job, starting the next day. Gerry replied by saying she had changed her mind; she now valued her body differently.'
Gerry moved to Tasmania, git married, finished her art course in TAFE and settled down. Three years later she visited me again in Fremantle. The feral was gone. She looked like the girl next door.
The Zimmers Apprentices and singer songwriter Tony Dunkley have written a song The Wounded Princess based on this story.
