Blue Afternoon

A wave-shaped band of cumulus rolls across the middle of the sky above the hills of the Bega Valley hinterland. A strip of sunlight catches the mid-ground slopes while the foreground grass and scrub sit in deep shadow. Mist gathers in the far valleys, softening the ridgelines into pale, layered tones. Silhouetted eucalypts on the left hold the middle ground between the dark foreground and the lit hillside behind them.

Brett photographed this on the afternoon of 20 December 2016, on the Nikon D810 with an 80-400mm lens, in the grazing country behind the Sapphire Coast of New South Wales. The Landscapes collection covers his wider travel photography across Australia and Japan rather than the abandoned-places work the Lost Collective is built on, and there is no documented history attached to this hillside. The frame is built on one band of sun across the slopes and the deep shadow either side of it. Mist pooling in the far valleys flattens the ridges into layers, which is a recurring habit of this country in the warmer months. The eucalypts on the left are the only hard edge in an otherwise tonal composition.