There are many things I could say about intensity, having lived through the largest and most intense firestorm ever experienced in Australia’s post-European history. The intense raw emotion and feelings of loss, of home, environment, and neighbours, the intense sensitivity expressed as an overwhelming paranoia and anger to protect ‘our’ burnt bush from invaders with cameras, the intense love for this land, this lovely bush that has not yet recovered.
I have unearthed these photos of the bush, taken shortly after the Black Saturday bushfires here of 2009, in St Andrews, Victoria. The photos were taken around our paddocks and in the neighbouring National Park.
This time my pictorial story looks at the Australian bush after a fire where the ground burned for days, where old fern covered creek beds and tracks from the gold diggings of the 1850s became exposed and denuded, and where a false Autumn was staged by burnt umber gum leaves, highlighting the predominant colour, black.
More of my bushfire stories can be found here.
- https://almostitalian.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/in-my-kitchen-february-7-2014-an-anniversary-story/
- https://almostitalian.wordpress.com/2015/06/21/old-fashioned-blankets/
- https://almostitalian.wordpress.com/2014/05/04/sunday-stills-wildflowers/
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