Adventures in Bundaberg
09/12/25
December had me out on another shoot for my employers at Scotts Group, and while the last one took me about as far from the coast as I’ve ever been in my life, this one had me right on the beach, well, practically anyway. The furthest north I’d previously been in Queensland was Maryborough, but this work trip had me heading all the way up to Bundaberg, a place I never really expected to visit. That’s part of what makes these projects fun, isn’t it?
Being a work trip, I didn’t get much opportunity to do photography for myself, but on the first morning shoot I managed to snap the images below while we were filming some B-roll around the beach at Turtle Sands. It was a real trial by fire, as all of the equipment we were using was new to me.
All I brought with me was my Canon R8 fitted with my vintage Nikon Nikkor 35mm, something I want to lean into much more heavily for personal work, especially black and white photography, in the new year. But that’s another story.
10/12/25
During our second day of shooting, we travelled to Bargara for lunch, a very cute little village right on the water that’s only a few blocks in size. The food in the area is amazing though. Over the trip, I had an incredible seafood pizza (I’m talking anchovies, perch, mussels, scallops, squid, cuttlefish, and prawns), as well as an equally incredible calamari burger with bacon and all the works. An absolutely brilliant little location.
I also grabbed a couple of photos from The Hummock Lookout on the way back, but in all honesty, there wasn’t much to be seen.
Our final night had us visiting the Mon Repos Turtle Centre. We were scheduled to watch a turtle laying eggs on the beach, and it was a very cool facility, very dark and moody, as you can no doubt tell from the photos, at least outside of the main waiting area. I’m pretty happy with how eerie the turtle skeletons turned out.
What I’m not so happy about is the last image, which shows a turtle coming up onto the beach with a flashlight in its face. We had hoped that, when we were told we’d be filming turtles, it wouldn’t be with a crowd, but oh boy, there was a crowd. Out of all the video and photos I managed to take around a sea of kids, that distant turtle head, bleached by light, was about as good as it got. Oh well—it was still a very special night and an incredibly cool thing to witness.
