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MARK JONES FILMS
Producer. Director. Writer. Camera. Edit. Activist.

The he hand of “Camel Luke” on the head of a 3.1 metre salty we harpooned at the Cone Bay Barra farm back in 2012 after getting a phone call pleading for help. Turns out every croc within a 30 mile radius was smelling the fish and were hassling the workers.

We were with an Englishman by the name of Simon Reeves who was doing a series entitled “The Indian Ocean” for the BBC. We harpooned the beast on camera and then hauled it into the tinny, which took him by surprise.

We got him to sex the animal which was completely off script knowing full well, given its size, it was a male. The look on his face whilst performing the act was priceless.
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#catchingcrocodiles
#crocodiles
#salties
#simonreeve
#problemcrocodiles
#adventure

Actor Aaron Pederson on a photo shoot we did for his ABC show “Forces of Nature” a few years back. An awesome human being.
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#blackandwhite
#blackandwhitephotographer
#portrait

The storms keep rolling through but the swells have been down. We have a low building in the next week or so which should get things moving again. Until then, an ode to surfing in black and white.
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#blackandwhitesurfing
#blackandwhite
#blackandwhitephotography
#surfing
#broome
#bmesurfing
#broomesurfing
#broomeboardridersclub

The changing light of a Kimberley Wet.
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#rainbows
#monsoon
#austtaliasnorthwest
#broome
#westernaustralia
#australia
#storms
#lightning
#wetseason

Ian “Marshy”Marshall with a cracking Fingermark caught near Koolan Island in series 3 of ‘Fishing WA’ in 2002.

Marshy was teamed up with show creator Steve Correia and had done 2 series before hand which slotted in beautifully between the cricket and became a smash hit for the TV station.

I joined the team to make “Fishing Wild Australia”, a national show, and then the state show which went on for years. As they say “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

The show allowed me to travel every nook and cranny of WA’s vast coast. I have seen a lot of change over the years and I hope it stays as wild as I have seen it.
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#fishingwa
#fishingaustralia
#australiafishing
#weaternaustraliafishing
#kimberleyfishing
#fishingwildaustralia
#adventure
#outdoors
#wilderness

In Aboriginal culture, it is said, we humans received language from the birds. The Karradadda family in Kalamburu recently told me their family name comes from the Pied Butcher Bird. Indeed most words are the phonetic representation of the sounds they make. A language built around nature. Believe it or not, all languages arose from the sounds of nature. They were turned into symbols whose provenance is known only by a few crusty old academics and buried in dusty old books. An ode to our nature based past.

I know there are a few twitchers out there in Insta world, care to have a crack at naming a few of these fine specimens??
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#birds
#australianbirds
#northernaustralian
#australianwildlife
#wildlife
#australianfauna
#twitchers

The very first film I saw on the big screen was at the Karratha drive in circa 1977. I can remember, like it was yesterday, sitting on the edge of the HJ Kingswood station wagon tail, glued to a young Jeff Bridges (aka The Dude) sitting in the tinny enveloped by fog motoring mysteriously toward a never seen island. As the fog dissipated, the enormous cliffs and epic landscape opened up to “King Kongs” Island and I was sold. Sold on the idea of lost worlds. Like the rest of the kids of our generation we devoured content like “Journey to the centre of the Earth” and “Lost in Space”. We loved the thought that there were places yet undiscovered.

14 years later, I did my first trip into the Kimberley with the adventure film maker Malcolm Douglas (who was born on this day back in 1941) and I thought about that little kid in that drive in and the power of film.

That first trip was like that. I was in awe of this epic landscape so full of mystery, and so full of history. I felt like I was the first white fella to lay eyes on it. Sometimes, I still feel like that now.

It is an epic landscape hidden, thankfully, from most. A landscape full of secrets and mystery and messages for those that have eyes to see and ears to listen.
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#culturallandscape
#australiasnorthwest
#thekimberley
#australia
#westernaustralia
#australianadventure
#malcolmdouglas
#epiclandscapes
#lostworlds
#ancientland

That movie experience was also the first time I fell in love. Her name was Jessica Lange.

Slowly going through the thousands of images from this wet. A labor of love.
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#wetseasonswell
#broome
#broomeswell
#broomesurf
#bmesurf
#tropicalswell
#wasurf
#westernaustraliasurfing
#waves
#surfing

In the Guinness book of records, the harvesting of crocodile eggs in the wild was the most dangerous job in the world. Next to that, I reckon harvesting eggs out of Malcolm’s parks was pretty close.

Each year as the wet set in the crocs would lay their eggs and then go nuts. We would then arm ourselves with ladders, dental floss and a bamboo poll and fool ourselves that “she’ll be right”. Most of the time I was concentrating on not being eaten so a camera was out of the question. I remember once seeing Malcolm’s son Lachlan jump over a 6 foot chain mesh fence like a pogo stick (millennials will have to google).

This is Malcolm cosying up to a croc called Willie who had 7 wives. He was a fearsome animal most of the time, but nothing compared to the wrath of the mothers when you entered their nest. And being small they were fast and full of teeth.

I did this caper, on and off, for a long time. I look back and shake my head and smile to myself. It was the best of times and the worst of times.
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#adventure
#youth
#malcolmdouglas
#malcolmdouglascrocodilepark
#saltwatercrocodile
#crocodylusporosus
#crocfarming
#occupatiinalhealthandsafety
#guinessbookofworldrecords
#australianadventure
#australiancharacters
#australiatravel
#outbackadventures
#australian4wd
#australian4x4
#4wdaction
#toyota
#australianlegends

This was taken whilst on a photoshoot with Hugh Brown in 2011. Hugh agreed to lay in a crocodile trap and capture the 75 crocodiles coming out of the “world’s most dangerous lake” to feed. A sphincter clenching act.

#malcolmdouglascrocodilepark 📸 Hugh Brown

Flinders Ranges. SA. 2013.

We were in the Flinders Ranges filming the Etiacra fossils which are the oldest multi cellular fossils known and come in at a lazy 635 million years. It was hard to fathom a remnant of a creature from so long ago.

It was for part of series called “Wild Australia” which took us to some incredible, unheard of, parts of the world.

📸 Vanessa Hunter.

#etiacrayon #flindersranges #southaustralia #wildaustralia

Filming at Oomarri - King George River - at a place called python pool. Home to an exquisite panel of Kira Kiro figures looking over the river and down to the magnificent falls. We had the local families with us telling us the stories for this country and the art. We had to clear the airstrip with a metal bar and chain because it hadn’t been used for 7 years so the plane and the mob could rendezvous with us.

I drove out of there later that day with a mate and went down with Covid in one of the most isolated parts of the world.

A very special day in very special country.

#balangarra
#kwini
#kirakiro
#oomarri
#kinggeorgeriver

There are 5 populations of humpback whale that traverse the planet along their songlines. One in the Northern hemisphere and four in the South. The largest one is the population IV which plies the WA coast.

It appears that these whales sing their maps as they make the huge journey from Antartica to the Kimberley region, much like most other animals. We humans used to do it as well before we became more enamoured with Kanye and McDonald’s.

We know that a mother will come back to the same bay each year to birth, it is her home and has been for countless generations. An old elder once told me that this is the last verse in her song which only she knows. A lyric that brings her back to her home.

I often wonder what the world would be like if we thought about it in these terms.

📸 @meghenschkejones

#songlines

Xavier Rudd. Peru. 2013.

Sitting under the great Queen of the jungle - the Lupuna Tree - smoking mapacho with the Shipebo people on an epic trip we did way back when. This photo made it into Xav’s cover for “Nanna”. A photo that brings back many great memories.

I’ve been on many great journeys with Xav over the years. This one is right up there.

❤️
@xavierruddofficial
#peru
#thejungleisamysteriousplace
#nannaalbum
#shipebo
#lupunatree
#southamerica
#answerstoquestions

The hands of Kwini elder Augi Unangho resting on a couple of Kira Kiro figures holding hands. It has long been speculated as to whether these figures were male or female and it wasn’t till Augi showed me this couple that I realised they were both.

Augi then went on to speak about the accoutrements/costume they were wearing and the plants they were made from. A regalia that is still used today - 14,000 years later - get your head around that.

#culturallandscape #dalgarr #rockartaustralia #kirakiro #rockart #australia #australiasnorthwest #westernaustralia #balangarra #kwini

Jigalong WA circa 2000. Malcolm making fire the old way with hard wood, soft wood and some roo dung. The old man he was with was a legendary character who had come out of the bush when he was younger. I also met Daisy who was one of the girls who escaped New Norcia and walked back home along the rabbit proof fence. She was old but her smile lit up the room.

Things have changed a fair bit in the world since I took this photo. Recently I watched a bloke start a fire on this platform using softwood, dung and a battery operated drill.

Seems like everyone these days wants to be a star!

#oldways #culture #malcolmdouglas #fire #martu #desertpeople #jigalong

@adeleoliver surrounded by dust storms and a moody sky whilst making her latest clip for “Home tonight”.

Out now.

A dry lightning strike over the Martuwarra - Fitzroy River. I was with a bunch of scientists tagging the fabled sawfish in November for a film I was making called “The Serpents Tale” which was commissioned by the PEW foundation. A labour of love which took me 2 years to film along the length and breadth of this great river following in the footsteps of Winyoombool and the serpents and the mythical Mudjulla tree.

This river is regarded as being one of the last in Australian still connected to a “riverine cosmology” which must make it one of the last in the world.

An epic journey along an epic river.

#culturallandscape #martuwarra #fitzroyriver #sacred #river #water #riverinecosmology #springfoundation #jila

In our part of the world we are very blessed to have the Mowanjum festival every year which showcases the junba (dance and song) of the Wandjima people.

The 3 Wandjina tribes are defined by Wanalirri, Namarali and Rimitj Morro who survived ‘the flood’ and repopulated the land, in an eerily similar story to Noah and his sons Ham, Shem and Japheth.

The songs and story of this ancient tale are still very much alive and are reenacted every year at the festival for all to see.

The rock art paintings of these ancient events are nigh on impossible to get to, but there are some on the tourist route for those that are interested.

The descendants of these Wandjina are painted right throughout the Kimberley in a family tree tattooed into the landscape like pages in a giant book. An ancestry which is part of the country.

#wandjina #rockart #mowanjumfestival #mowanjumartscentre #culturallandscape #junba #history #ngaranyinmob #worrorra #wunambalgaambera

One Tree Beach. Admiralty Gulf. Kimberley. 2007.

This was my 8th season of Fishing WA with Jacko and Nick Hocking hosting the show. I often say that making this show was like being in a band touring for 3 months of the year. We would fish by day and scout the pubs by night drinking beer and finding the goss on where the fish were biting.

At Bluey Vaughn’s camp you didn’t need the goss, the fish were always on. I still rate this in my top 5 fishing spots in Oz. An amazing place with Bluey and his son Digs having deep knowledge of all things that swim.

One Tree is deep inside the vast wilderness of the Kimberley, it is as nature intended.

#culturallandscape #fishing #fishingwa #adventure #tawnynurseshark #lemonshark #barramundi #thekimberley

A short sharpy down to Cheela Plains station out of Paraburdoo. A lazy 46 degrees out here and sweeping storms bellowing out of the iron ranges of the Hamersley. Down here doing a story with pastoralist Evan Pensini who is going back to the future and shepherding his herd around to look after his fragile 3 billion year old soil.

A legendary character along with his beautiful wife Robin.

Surrounded by spectacular country.

#cheelaplainsstation #pilbara #ancientcountry #adventure @robinrichardspensini

Back in the day when I was bouncing between making fishing shows with ‘Jacko’ and shooting with Malcom. 2 larger than life characters.

#fishingwa #malcolmdouglas #landdrover #broome #adventure

From running man to “Floating Woman”.

From time to time, when the conditions are right, Cable Beach can go gin clear and dream like. This was one of those days.

Another Covid day where we had it all to ourselves.

@meghenschkejones @summerpeopleaustralia #water #thesea

March 2020. We had just been told the sky was falling on our heads with a pandemic sweeping through the world.

I grabbed my camera and walked down onto the beach pontificating the end of the world when a vicious storm brewed up out of nowhere and the heavens opened up. While I was running back home trying to save my camera, a lone apparition began to appear through the strange light. I began clicking away until he ran straight passed me. He must have thought I was a lunatic as he gave me the strangest look.

I call this one “Running Man”.

#photography #blackandwhite #blackandwhitephotography #cablebeach #broome #australianorthwest #watourism #running

Sept 1993. Somewhere in the King Sound in the iced coffee water after a brutal night and a baptism of fire.

We had been filming for a couple of weeks out along the Kimberley coast dining on golden trevally and hope.

Malcolm always liked to harpoon a couple of crocs on the last night as he had a licence to fill his park. General rule of thumb is trap big crocs and harpoon the smaller females for breeding pairs.

On this night we had been in the inland sea on the northern side of the sound in what may have been the coldest I have ever been. And if I was cold then the crocs would have been. We had to work all night just to get two and I remember the exhaustion vividly - a space Malcolm relished.

On our way out of the sea in the pitch black with only a spot light wired (dodgily) to a car battery, we hit a sand bank at full clip. I was asleep in the cabin at the front on top of swags, food, camera gear, a red heeler, spears, water and god knows what else.

Now when a boat stops suddenly everything else continues until it hits something. In my case I ended up on top of our crocs. Exhausted, cranky and delirious, I pulled up a swag and fell asleep again. The result is this image taken by Malcolm Douglas.

#adventure #thekimberley #crocodiles #malcolmdouglas

The red, white and blue of Redell over the past week has made for some great photos and the Pindan stain through everything. There was a rumour that the Don was out the back, but I couldn’t see him through the long lens. Looking at his face though, he has the tell tale signs of a Reddell session.

I got a call a few years back from French artist Angelina Markel to capture the famous dinosaur tracks around the Broome coastline for an upcoming exhibition she had in Europe. We were joined by legendary palaeontologist Professor Steve Salisbury and TO Richard Hunter over a week traipsing over hill and dale finding and capturing these enigmatic prints.

I learnt that the tracks were created over a very short period 130 million years ago when a flood event wiped out the vegetation and thus the dinosaurs in the area. Through a freak of nature, the prints were baked and buried in the Broome sandstone and have appeared now for all of us to see.

I have also followed, for many years now, the tale of the Emu man and the story of the forbidden fruit. It is painted throughout the Kimberley sandstone to the North. In the stories attached to the art, the emu man flees down South toward Broome and then is jettisoned into the sky and becomes the emu in the Milky Way, a story that is told all over this vast continent.

As I understand it, the dinosaur tracks in Broome and the Kimberley are the only tracks in the world connected to deep indigenous stories. These stories are connected through people, art and place and is one of the reasons why they are in the national heritage list. They are a national treasure.

Note: First photo by legendary 📸: Damien Kelly

#broome
#dinosaurs
#dinosaurtracks
#broomedinosaurprints
#nationalheritage
#culturallandscape
#history
#prehistory
#art

Pigeon Hole community circa 2001. Victoria River NT.

We were in the community filming the teacher of the community school who was getting 100% attendance and we wanted to know his secret.

Turns out he used to be a vet who was tangled up (viciously) in the Fine Cotton affair back in the day. After the furore he was ‘defrocked’ and left the big smoke with his tail between his legs and a rather significant rum habit.

And so he applied for a job as a teacher in the (very) outback community, away from all the controversy, and set about getting to work. Whilst he did use the classroom for some of the curriculum, most of the time he was on the river doing what the kids loved: fishing, swimming and having fun. He would teach the kids how to throw a lure and when things were quiet he would chuck rocks into the water and tell the kids to get 9 rocks, and this was how the kids learnt to count. He had other ingenious methods for the 3 R’s and I kid you not, the kids would be knocking on the door every morning just as he was filling up his panikin for the first rumbo for the day.

#malcolmdouglas #rum #fishing #communities #victoriariver #thethreers

The first rock art painting I was shown by the old people was 32 years ago. I was taken in by 3 old men and Malcolm and was told the story of the Gwion woodpecker who pecked its beak on the rock resulting in the magnificent painting.

The art site itself was a catacomb. You could feel the energy of a thousand generations previous. You could hear the kids playing. You could hear the fires crackling. This wasn’t just about a painting or a story, it was also about a place. A landscape. A people.

I left that incredible experience with a burning question “What does it mean?” A question that has taken a long time to begin to answer.

Today, most of us go and look at the Mona Lisa in the Louvre along with a thousand other paintings and a million other people. It’s a box ticking exercise. A bucket list. And it’s only a few hundred years old. The story behind the painting is nebulous and it was painted somewhere else and placed in this cold building, a long way from where it was created.

The rock art gallery here, probably the biggest in the world, is tens of thousands of years old. And when you look at the paintings, and feel them, you know you are standing exactly where the painter did. You are also listening to the story of the painting by a blood relative whose story has been passed down faithfully for a very, very long time. Think about that.

And remember there is still a culture who can speak to it, and translate it to us, if we care to listen.

#sacred
#rockart
#story
#mythology
#culturallandscape
@rock_art_australia

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MARK JONES FILMS Producer. Director. Writer. Camera. Edit. Activist.

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Organic Unisex Crewneck T-shirt | Econscious EC1000 White

MARK JONES FILMS
Producer. Director. Writer. Camera. Edit. Activist.