Photograph by Toby Burrows
Stephanie Wood joins artist Joshua Yeldham aboard his floating studio on the Hawkesbury.
The Victory is Yeldham's floating studio on the Hawkesbury River, a 50-foot, hand-built, trawler-style vessel. It allows him to immerse himself in the landscape of the ancient drowned valleys.
Typically, he's alone on the river. Yeldham, 43, will work through the night, sleep briefly, and wake at five to photograph the dawn fog or fallen ghostly angophoras. Later, he might take off in his tinny to explore secret creeks and muddy mangroves. "If I pick tides right, I'm walking in landscape that is impenetrable to humans really … it's like a lost-in-time kind of feeling."
