Outback Australia’s constant battle with drought. A lifeless landscape with the remnants of what was once the dog fence built to protect sheep grazing country from the ravages of wild dogs.

Showers rolling in along the hills south of Hawker in the Flinders Ranges. © Peter MacDonald 2015

In some ways the change in  seasons is gradual. In others it comes quite quickly. It’s no so hot anymore and you realise summer is gone. The first cold weather, showers, the end of daylight saving all indications winter is not too far away.

Still autumn is really the best time to be in the Flinders Ranges or further afield in the Outback.

Pictures are a bit hard to come by at the moment. I have been involved in a couple of projects where for one reason or another, I can’t use images that I’ve recently  taken.

©Copyright Peter MacDonald 2015. All Rights Reserved

The recent rains have opened up all sorts of opportunities that have kept me on the road or in the air over the last few weeks.

The most obvious result of those rains has been the greening of the countryside over a wide area of the Flinders Ranges and Outback.

It is something of a shock to see such areas of green when you are so used to the brown and yellow hues that normally cover the land.

From the air it is very evident.

The Wooltana Station homestead nestling up against the foothills of the Flinders Ranges is surrounded in a Green carpet

Copyright Peter MacDonald 2015. All Rights Reserved.

After rains the vegetation takes on a rather striking shade of green.

It’s almost iridescent as seen here on both side of the Nepowie Range near the Gammon Ranges National Park.

The time of day could have a bearing on this.

The image above was taken mid afternoon..the other two, top and bottom, in the early morning.

©Copyright Peter MacDonald 2015. All Rights Reserved

Further north you could almost imagine playing an extended round of golf on the plains near the Beverley Uranium mine.

The bunkers could be  a bit savage though.

In the world of digital photography, green seems to be the colour most difficult to capture correctly. Whether that’s an Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom thing I am not sure. It could be just me.

However I have found that taking  care to get exposures right is the best way round this.

Mt Alec in the Elder Range is often photographed. It’s formation is spectacular, highlighted in the morning by the rising sun.
A different view of the mount this morning, its peak almost hidden in the clouds still hanging around from the night’s previous storms.

There has been summer rains several times in the previous weeks around Wilpena and Mt. Alec, the green healthy vegetation quite noticeable.

Before, during and after bad weather is always a good time to be out looking for interesting light.

Only six creek between me and home and the rain is falling so hard the windscreen wipers are struggling to clear the water.

Summer in the Flinders Ranges and for another thousand kilometres north means occasional  unpredictable rains, swollen fast running creeks and what seems like oceans of water.

The next day the sun is shining but water is everywhere. Dirt roads have turned to sludge, creeks are still flowing.

This guy didn’t even stop for a chat.

©Copyright 2014 Peter MacDonald Photography. All Rights Reserved.

Over a number of years from time to time, I have passed this lonely skeleton standing in a tree-less plain and thought it needed a dust devil to complete the picture.

Dust devils are quite common here but none came close anytime when I was there ..until by chance the God of summer storms smiled on me.

©Copyright 2014 Peter MacDonald Photography. All rights reserved.

Electrical storms are good for photographs..either before, during or after the event.

There’s a certain blue colour that not seen at other times that has been caught in this picture.

The colour is quite pronounced. It’s  usually seen in the afternoon on a stinking hot day when the storm clouds are building and there’s a bit of crackle and fizz in the air.

In these conditions, there will often be only a few drops of rain on a land that desperately needs it. Every living thing is in search of water. Birds gather at the bore tanks. Kangaroos, emus,sheep and cattle hang around the water troughs as another scorching sun sinks into the west.

©Copyright 2014 PeterMacDonald Photography. All rights reserved

Virga, the meteorological term for rain that doesn’t reach the ground, at least produces a rainbow to mark the occasion.

Spring Days in the Flinders Ranges can be idyllic or windy and unpleasant.

Dust storms aren’t unusual and days when raised dust leaves a a grey pall hanging in the air aren’t exactly ideal for photography – like the other day.

A full blown rolling dust storm is a spectacular event..

White outs can be moderate like the one above or thicker like the one I photographed during the drought several years ago.

Whatever the intensity, it wipes out almost all colour from the landscape so for the image above I had to rely on the sun which was directly in front of the camera silhouetting the Mt Deception Range near Leigh Creek.

Without the little hillock with the tuft of trees, the composition would have been sadly lacking.

Bad weather is a one of the best times to get interesting photographs.

A case in point is this shot taken recently on Gum Creek station in the Flinders Ranges.

There’s a well known landmark on Gum Creek called the Great Wall of China.

It’s a spectacular line of exposed rock atop an extended row of hills – in fact an ancient seabed.

You can see a bit of the ‘Great Wall’ in the shot above.

However it was not my aim to concentrate on the landmark, rather it was more an opportunity made available by the approaching storm.

A week and a few kilometres from the location of the previous post… a dry summer storm and tonnes of top soil disappearing to who knows where.

The dead trees along this creek tell a story of heartbreak and hardship.

While quick and heavy falls of rain are nothing new around this part of the world, particularly in summer and often caused by thunderstorms, nothing prepared Geoff and Di Mengersen for devastating floods in April 2010.

Depot Springs received about 100 millimetres or 4 inches of rain in 90 minutes.

The torrential downpour changed the whole landscape. It washed away hills, took out about 15 kilometres of fences, washed away roads, and destroyed infrastructure.

700 sheep were lost.

Hundreds of large river red gums were ripped from the ground and washed away. Those that remained were literally battered to death…..ringbarked by the tons of broken trees and other debris hurled down by the terrific force of the water.

Today they make a forlorn sight…a stark reminder of a storm that almost forced the Mengersens to give up the property.

First light at the Jack Camp yards on the Eastern side of Depot Springs station

A thunderstorm approaching from the left…the sun rising on the right.

A great recipe for an electric sky.

It was 45 degrees on my back porch this afternoon at 3 o’clock and it wasn’t much cooler when I took this photo last week.

This old tank has seen a few hot summers and temperatures sometimes in the 50s.

It was built in the 1870 as far as anyone can remember. Even today it is still in use on Nilpena station which backs onto the eastern shore of Lake Torrens.

The tank holds a substantial amount of water from the bore and it will probably see in a few more summers yet.

Photographing in extreme temperatures in outback Australia has some advantages. There seems to be more intense and unusual colours to capture when the days are long and extremely hot.

However it’s not recommended for the inexperienced or foolhardy.

Each year the Bureau of Meteorology puts out a calendar of spectacular weather scenes from around the country.

The 2013 Met Bureau calendar features a photos of mine of a dust storm over Arkaroola in the northern Flinders Ranges a few summers ago.

It is one of three pictures taken of the front at pretty close quarters. I had been hanging onto the shots in the hope I could make a triptych out of them. That’s if I could find a wall big enough to do them justice.

There’s a pretty good explanation of the actual storm and how it formed from a meteorological point of view by going to the Met Bureau site HERE where you can also purchase a copy of the calendar.

The photos does give a pretty good idea of the size of the storm. The hills and mountains of Arkaroola, which are quite substantial, appear almost dwarfed by the incoming front.

Camera details: Fuji X-100 camera fixed lens. f5.6 @ 1/50th sec ISO 400