Marilyn Monroe in The Sound of Music

I was on assignment shooting the RSPCA Calendar 'Here Boy - Men and their Dogs'.  Paul ('Mr August') lived on a picturesque little olive grove in the Serpentine Valley with his Greek wife and dog, Jay.

Over lunch I noticed the walls were hung with images of Marilyn Monroe.  In the living area, kitchen, hallway there were pictures, big and small, of Marilyn. On the bookshelves there were books about Marilyn. Our place mats were monogrammed MM  and we drank from Marilyn coffee mugs. I could't help but notice that Paul's wife was remarkably blonde and 'Marilyn-ish'  for a Greek girl.

We walked over the farm and I shot 30 or 40 shots of Paul and Jay in a  bubbling stream beside a quiet little waterfall. When I had finished I asked Paul's wife if she would like me to photograph her. I suspect she might have been waiting for the offer.

She ran off into some thick trees and over a small rise. She called out and then ran over the hilltop and down the grassy slope towards me. I was a bit surprised and took a while to react, half expecting a chorus of 'The hills are alive ....' to break out. .I thought I was going to get a Marilyn Monroe Some Like it Hot performance but it was more like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music.


Neither Paul or 'Marilyn' were boring people. Just the opposite in fact. People like this keep the world turning. More than that, they make photography a pleasure.

'We are all of us stars,

and we deserve to twinkle.'

Marilyn Monroe

Which lens to shoot Tom Sawyer?

In primary school I was an avid reader, devouring Biggles, The Famous Five and Kemlo and the Crazy Planets. In high school I read less but was awe-struck by Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. We lived in a brand new suburb called Wembley with bush to explore, quarry walls to climb and cubbies to build.

When my son James was turning six I offered to take him and his two best mates away for a 'Tom Sawyer' weekend in the Avon Valley. It was early March and the end of a hot summer. March was warm and balmy, the bush was alive with animals and birds; cicadas were in full battle cry; close to perfect Tom Sawyer conditions.

James with Cindy in the Avon valley, March 1976

Tents, sleeping bags, food, three boys and a daschund cross were packed into a Datsun 1200 coupe. We headed into the rolling hills nortth-west of Perth; down Lover's Lane we found a couple of narrow corrugated side tracks. We pulled our gear under a barbed wire fence near a creek with barely enough water to wet a whistle

What amazed me was the ease with which three young boys can blend in with nature and adapt to the elements without any resort to superficiality. James and his mates ran, jumped, climbed. clambered and slipped. They built wigwams, had 'boondy'  and nut  throwing competitions, grazed toes, lit camp-fires, cooked dinner and told scary stories under a starry sky. They lived the Tom Sawyer dream.  Despite the fact that our dog Cindy had  rolled in a dead sheep carcass earlier in the day she invited herself to share a tent with the three boys at night. Neither party seemed even slightly concerned. (My tent was a safe nose-throw away.)

I can't recall having to yell at any of the boys that weekend. I wandered lonely as a cloud, read a book and took a few dozen photos. A slightly anxious farmer approached us on Sunday to tell us we were camped on his property. I offered to photograph the land owner on a macho outback pose and he left feeling well pleased with himself.  Late Sunday we drove west into the setting Autumn sun with my cargo of three smelly, sunburnt boys and an even smellier, happy dog.

Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn would have been proud of the young trio and their four-legged protector. James and his mates had been explorers, fighters, pirates and cowboys. No lives were lost; jusr a bit of skin here and there.

The Tom Sawyer weekend was the first of one of many forays into the outback in Western Australia with our two kids. We never had a lot of money to spend on holidays but we always had adventures - from Broome and the Pilbara to Albany and Denmark. We rarely used caravan parks or camping grounds. We simply free-camped. Occasionally, we added bikes and canoes into the formula but it was always cheap fun and exploration  and learning.

Years later,  both my son and daughter did courses for Outward Bound Australia and then later joined as staff members of Outward Bound Australia. I'm convinced that Outward Bound had a pronounced influence and direction on my kids' lives. In retrospect, I also now realise how much of an influence parents can have in shaping their kids; not so much by telling but by doing. And I sometimes ponder how many kids Mark Twain has shaped with Tom Sawyer and the Adventures of Huck Finn.

(As for which lens? 200mm Nikkor on Nikon Photomic F2 camera and Kodak VPS film)

Discover which cameras and lenses are best for portrait photography in my next UWA Photographing Faces workshop.

PS The story continues. My son James is now training his son Tom Finn (named after both Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn) in the fine art of outback adventure in the hills and valleys in the Brindabellas on the east coast.