The ‘Outback’ in Australia is a vast land inhabited by only 5% of the country’s 24 million individuals. While seemingly wild and beautiful, the Aboriginal land holds millions of stories, passed from the elders to the next generation, which is now gradually fading away. In the face of such an impact, Adam Ferguson worked on a project titled Big Sky, which stands as a reminder of the stark loss. After traveling 30,000 km to capture the 65,000-year-old rich and intricate history of the place, Adam Ferguson’s photo book poses endless significant questions, whose answers lie at the precipice of change.
Adam Ferguson was born in Dubbo, a town in Australia, and spent his formative years in Yeoval, a small farming community in the country. It was here that his formative years shaped his perspective of the region, but it wasn’t until 2014, after spending years in New York, Afghanistan, Nigeria, and more, that Ferguson felt the need to go home. He gradually began to spend more time with people from varied walks of life that he encountered at the Outbacks: farmers, drag queens, teenagers, Swifties, and more. But the romantic portrayal of the region slowly began to lift its veil to depict the challenges the inhabitants face: climate change. The rosy picture he painted at 11 gradually began to crumble, revealing the scars lying underneath.
The project was initially inspired by Richard Avedon’s In the American West portrait series, which shatters the romantic notion of the West. However, with time and conversation, he realized the project could not be narrated through the portraits alone, and that’s where his pictures of the inhabitants were married with landscapes of Australia.
When you first hold Big Sky by Adam Ferguson, you will instantly fall in love with the cover depicting the night sky. The deep blues flirt with spots of silver, making the book appear rather romantic at its initial viewing. But when you turn the pages and go to the first images, you soon realize the place is not what people make it seem. The first picture is of rusted chairs hanging on a pole, which have been put up that way to dry after the flooding. As you further flip through the pages, a feeling of dread settles at the bottom of your stomach. The beauty of the land clashes with the images of destruction of the property and the death of animals, making you ponder: Is this our doing?
…you will instantly fall in love with the cover depicting the night sky. The deep blues flirt with spots of silver, making the book appear rather romantic at its initial viewing.
What I do appreciate is the way the title is embossed on the cover, which is a genius decision considering the context of the story. Adam Ferguson captures striking photographs that hit us with hard facts about a place that is withering away, but one can only notice these changes if one is careful or attentive enough to look. In the same vein, the title is only clearly visible if you look for it.
As Ferguson believed, his portraits, some full body shots, and others shoulder-length images, work wonderfully with the landscapes. They narratively flow well, and even visually. Together, they tell a narrative that would be incomplete if the other half disappeared. You’ll also notice that in the portraits, Ferguson uses the environment where the inhabitants live to draw our attention to the pressing issue. By putting faces to the story of the climate crisis, moreover, portraits that directly look at the viewer, Ferguson compels us to think about those who are battling an issue that is beyond their control. In a way, whoever holds the book, in some way, will feel guilty of contributing to the climate crisis.
Each photograph gets its own page, which gives it breathing space. However, there are very few spreads where two images are on each side of the book. Ferguson is not asking you to rush; in fact, he wants you to look and feel the anxiety many farmers feel due to the loss of habitat for their livestock. In a way, the book confronts you subtly. The visual queues are revealed only to those who are invested.
Compositionally and along with the theme, his photographs are brilliant. In the spreads, the two images complement each other, and on the whole, the narration flows from day to night. For instance, the image of the chair at the start is the exact opposite of the children playing on the ground after sunset. There are varied ways to interpret it, and we leave that to the readers.
Ferguson is not asking you to rush; in fact, he wants you to look and feel the anxiety many farmers feel due to the loss of habitat for their live stock.
While the book, on the whole, is great, I do wish there were a few things different. For instance, the text should have been larger. As for the captions, which are at the end of the book, they should have been placed or spread across the copy. The only reason I say this is because the Big Sky measures 11 x 13 inches, making it challenging to switch back and forth between the images and the caption. Another thing I would have liked to be different is if a few images were published as spreads. For instance, the images of coal mines, dead fish in the lake, or herds of sheep have so much detail that half a page can’t do justice to it.
Overall, the photo book does the job splendidly: It reminds us of the fragility of our existence and its dependence on the very thing we are killing right now.
You can purchase Adam Ferguson’s Big Sky from Amazon.
We’re giving Big Sky 4 out of 5 stars.
