Personal Projects: Australiana Simon Eeles

The first book by up-and-coming photographer Simon Eeles (born 1983), named Harper Bazaar's Young Photographer of the Year in 2009, Australiana is the result of a cross-continental road trip Eeles undertook in his homeland after years of working in the US and abroad. Featuring beachside portraits, images of his nieces and nephews playing in his mother's backyard on a small dairy farm in Tasmania, as well as landscape images of the country's vegetation, the volume aims to paint a portrait of a place and a culture geographically separated. Having worked under renowned British fashion photographer Craig McDean, Eeles creates images with sharp, fashion-world glamour, even as he captures a relaxing day on an Australian beach. It is this rich and unusual combination of sensibilities--the outback hardness with New York glitz--that informs this first monograph, an homage to the diverse landscapes and hard light of the faraway continent.