Shovelling cotton seed, feeding sheep by hand, dealing with more stock losses and yet another day of waiting for rain is a not-so-distant memory for Blackall photographer Lisa Alexander.
"I can't even bear to think about it," she said.
It wasn't easy, but Ms Alexander forced herself to grab her camera and capture the beauty in her desperate situation.
"I just learned to look for it," she said.
"The deaths that we were seeing, the sheep that weren't surviving, and just the feeding.
"So that for me [photography] is how I … coped with drought … it gave me something else to focus on other than just the horrendous situation that we were in."
Ms Alexander is part of the Beauty in the Bush Collective, which brings together professional photographers from far-flung regions of the country to showcase the often harsh, but beautiful landscapes surrounding them.
Jessica Howard, who grew up on a cattle property near Biloela in central Queensland, craved a connection with her rural roots after spending 10 years in the UK.
On her return to Australia, Ms Howard started taking pictures of rural areas and the people who lived there.
The group of 10 photographers formed during the pandemic when a lot of their work had been delayed or cancelled.
"We initially set up an Instagram loop … [which involved] nudging our audience, to the next person in the group," she said.
Within six months the group had established the newspaper publication Bush Journal, which has now been turned into a book called Bush Life.
"So, it is a really kind of personal exploration, I think, of what it's like, what life is like in rural Australia," Ms Howard said.
"These are stories of worry about your family's future. Will there be a place in these industries for your children? And I think that these are absolutely universal issues."
Inspiration in isolation
While the rest of the country grappled with home-schooling their children, these women were used to isolation, often working by themselves and travelling long distances to get to photographic jobs.
"There are no colleagues to come home to [or] come back to the office and bounce ideas around to," Ms Howard said.
"We initially … started out as work colleagues really, but we've all become really firm friends."
Ms Alexander said even though they had never met, the camaraderie between the women was key to the group's success.
"It's like I've gained nine new online, incredibly supportive, incredibly talented friends that I know have my back," she said.
Droughts to floods
One of the things the group has focused on is finding beauty in all the seasons.
Ms Howard said that in the 18 months to two years since the collective formed, many of the women had gone from experiencing harsh drought conditions to dealing with the flood crisis.
"For those 30 seconds or a couple of minutes at the end of the day during golden hour when they capture their horses in a paddock, that for them has been respite and that has been self-care for them," she said.
Ms Howard wants the women's work to show rural Australians are some of the most environmentally conscious people.
"You'll meet a farmer and he'll be able to tell you exactly what type of grass is in every single paddock of his 20,000 acres and what temperature the grass germinates in," she said.
"Rural Australians are very conscious of the environment because it's their livelihood."
Photography a refuge
Photography has been the thing that's connected Ms Howard back to her family after an absence of 10 years.
"Photography is what brought me closer, particularly to my dad — he's a very kind of country dad," she said.
"We didn't have a super strong relationship because I didn't come back to the farm and photography really kind of transported me back home and helped me connect with home."
Similarly, Henrietta Attard, from Homebush near Mackay, has always been drawn to bush life and its "very quiet beauty", but for a busy farmer it is not always easy to slow down and appreciate it.
"You're always on the go, there's no time to set up for a photoshoot, there's no time to work around the weather," she said.
"You just have to take nature as it comes and I guess that is a challenge, but when you're out in the bush, as beautiful as this is, it's really not that hard, to be honest.
"You just have to keep your eyes open."
While their work is beautiful, the reality of their lives on the land is often tough.
"I think that the hard times and the yucky bits, the downfalls, every failure that you have, every drought or failed crop — you remember those — you don't always remember the beautiful stuff," Ms Attard said.
"So that's why photography is so important, that's why these images are so important.
"It's not so much about glamorising, it's just recognising that there's beauty there."
