Reflection

Situated in the desert, Lake Pamamaroo is a dry lake that rarely has water flowing into it. Upon learning about the presence of water due to recent flooding, I made the 1100km drive to photograph the Milky Way at this location.

On the first night, I arrived at dusk, and it unexpectedly rained. Instead, Emma and I enjoyed a cheap bottle of red from the general store as we took in the amazing landscape from a tent on the lakeside.

The next day, I scouted the water's edge far away from camp to find a tree branch emerging from the water, which had a unique shape and aligned with the Milky Way. It was the only one on the entire lakeside that was isolated from other trees. Before arriving, I had imagined that there would be many to choose from, and I felt lucky to have discovered this particular one.

I spent two of the six nights photographing the same isolated tree, as conditions on every night were different. Two nights were rainy or had heavy cloud coverage. Two nights were very windy. One night was clear with mild winds, which created ideal star reflections in the water. On the other night, I photographed another area. It was an amazing few days, and capturing this image was challenging. Our tent blew sideways each night, as the open desert's windy conditions were too strong for our small tent. We bathed using a tap in the middle of winter with cold water and onlookers, something Emma was a great sport about, as I had promised showers but was mistaken about the amenities available.

With rain and clouds forecast for the next week, we continued through the outback to Broken Hill, where we stayed at a resort and enjoyed some comfort for the night. Emma was happy to have a roof over our heads, and I was pleased to have visited a location I had long wanted to photograph.