AS a music-obsessed teenager, Melody Pool had an iconic photograph of Joni Mitchell as her computer screen-saver.
The image taken in October 1970 depicts the then 27-year-old Canadian-American folk star, relaxed and striking, as she leans out of the bedroom window of her home in Los Angeles' counter-culture hub of Laurel Canyon.
The photographer responsible for that image was Henry Diltz.
Anyone with even a passing interest in rock or pop music from the past half a century has seen Diltz's work. Many of his images are staples in most classic rock vinyl or CD collections.
The legendary cover of The Doors' 1970 album Morrison Hotel was taken by Diltz (famously when the owner of the bar in downtown LA was called away, as he refused to give the band permission to use his venue).
He's also photographed music luminaries such as Paul McCartney, The Eagles, Neil Young, Crosby Stills & Nash, Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Jimi Hendrix, The Monkees, Keith Richards, Debbie Harry and Linda Ronstadt.
Diltz was also the official photographer at Woodstock in 1969 and his work has graced the front pages of Rolling Stone and LIFE magazines.
One of the most recent musicians to be captured by Diltz's lens was the Hunter's own Melody Pool.
In November the Kurri Kurri-raised singer-songwriter travelled to Los Angeles and spent two days with Diltz for a series of photographs, which will appear on the artwork of Pool's forthcoming third album and its promotional campaign.
"It was so wild," Pool says this week. "I still can't believe I did that. It felt like some weird fever dream.
"It was so lovely and he was so generous with his time.
"It didn't feel intimidating, though I did feel a little nervous that I'd flown all the way over there for these photos.
"It was super relaxed and he was super encouraging and super interesting. We had some really good conversations.
"He's very spiritual and a very thoughtful person."
Pool's opportunity to work with Diltz came through her publicist Debbie Kruger, who as a former music journalist formed a close friendship with Diltz back in the '90s.
"She was living there at the time in LA and she said, 'Come over, Henry will love you and I'll try to organise a photo shoot'," Pool says.
"It was as easy as that. It was special. It was just luck, I think."
During the two days with Diltz, Pool travelled to Red Rock Canyon in Nevada and visited The Getty Museum in LA.
Pool says she came away from the experience with a deep sense that Diltz understood her. He'd dug deep beneath what makes her such a complicated, but intriguing, artist.
"He has a real way of framing someone's personality," she says.
"It's really interesting. He really wanted to listen to my songs before the photo shoot.
"He really wanted to talk to me, so we had some really great conversations. He wanted to know me.
"He captured some very real moments, I think. He waits when he takes a photo for the right moment before he presses the button.
"It's almost like he waits for you to stop posing and just relax into it and be yourself."
Pool walked away from the experience with a beautiful array of images for her third album and a signed copy of Diltz's famous 1970 image of Joni Mitchell.
The first single off the album, Fantasy Girl, was released on Thursday and sees Pool return to the warm '70s Americana and folk-rock sound that first caught the attention of late Mushroom founder Michael Gudinski and led to tours with US folk legend Rodriguez.
There's also a large dollop of George Harrison-style classic rock.
"I wrote it on piano and it sounded like that kind of song," she says. "There's two ways you can go about that when a song is almost classic sounding.
"You either try and get away from that as much as possible or lean straight into it.
"The chord progression was so like those classic '70s songs, so I wanted to lean straight into it. There's no point fighting it."
Thematically, Fantasy Girl explores a popular theme for Pool; escaping the drudgery of reality by delving into endless possibility of the imagination.
In December 2022 Pool made her long-awaited comeback when she released the introspective acoustic single, Lost In Time.
The six-track EP, Lost In Time, followed in February, 2023, almost seven years after Pool's acclaimed second album Deep Dark Savage Heart.
The pressure of touring Deep Dark Savage Heart - which was written and recorded during a bleak period of depression - drove Pool away from music momentarily.
Then after several years of writing and recording "four to five" albums worth of material, only to abort before releasing it, she finally found solace in the quiet folk of Lost In Time.
"Lost In Time creatively ripped the band-aid off," she says. "I had so much pressure on the third album.
"Maybe that's partly why I didn't get it those four or five other times because I was applying all this pressure to make this comeback album and have this third record.
"Lost In Time threw all that up in the air and went, 'f - - k it, here's this completely subtle acoustic EP after seven years.'
"It just released the pressure valve for me."
Album No.3 will likely be released in July and the title is yet to be released.
While Lost In Time didn't attract the industry buzz of her country-tinged debut The Hurting Scene (2013) and Deep Dark Savage Heart, it empowered her to overcome her fear of releasing music after such a lengthy break.
"I started thinking about Lost In Time and how it could be me just dipping my toe in the water and not making releases such a huge deal," she says.
"Through the label [Mushroom subsidiary Bloodlines] and releasing my last albums, everything always felt so life and death, and it's so not.
"It's just releasing music. I need to remind myself of that this time around as it has been stressful doing it. It's not as big a deal as we make it out to be."
The new album was recorded live to tape across two weeks last May at Golden Retriever Studios in Marrickville, with her partner Christopher Dale producing.
After completing a recent national tour supporting close friend and Killing Heidi singer, Ella Hooper, and moving "back in the bush" in Wollombi after a stint in Newcastle, Pool is feeling buoyed.
Though she admits the pending release of the new album and the social media content creation required, is overwhelming.
"It can consume me a little bit and I'm trying to learn at the moment to take breaks and to rest and to flag when I'm not feeling good about something," she says.
"When my gut is sending me some red flags and I need to give myself time to approach it and change the dynamic or situation."
The financial battle of being an independent singer-songwriter is also something front of mind for Pool.
As she nears her 33rd birthday, she's accepted the chances of purchasing her own house are remote, but she knows she requires the "creative fulfilment of writing songs and sharing them".
The majority of her money made through music is invested back into her art.
"I wouldn't do it unless I felt I had to," she says. "It's always felt like a calling, than just a choice.
"I do write from what I call my muse. It feels like she would give me hell if I didn't try to get the songs heard."
