Kookaburra

A laughing kookaburra sits on the top edge of a metal sign, head tilted slightly upward, entirely indifferent to the notice underneath it. Warm late light catches the bird's plumage from the right while golden foliage blurs soft behind the metal post. A 200mm lens throws the background well out of focus, leaving the bird and the sign as the only sharp things in the frame.

Brett photographed this on the afternoon of 7 May 2017, on the Nikon D810, on the Central 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 this frame needs no history at all. The notice is addressed to people. The bird has read the post as furniture, which is what it is: a flat top at a convenient height with a view of the bush behind. Everything the picture has to say is already in it. The composition does the rest, warm light from one side and a soft golden background lifting the subject clear of its surrounds.