Community News

Facebook photo page phenomenon delivers Outback Stations book

Jon Condon, 21/09/2014

A RUNAWAY success Facebook page capturing images portraying the life and times of people living on outback stations has been transformed into a hugely successful coffee table book.

In March 2013, station cook and keen amateur photographer, Dan McIntosh had an idea. He wanted to share the pictures he had taken of his life on far-flung properties across the north, where he had worked for the previous 30 years.

Outback Stations - Cover ImageHe originally set up a Facebook page to share his photos only with family back in Mackay, but encouraged by his sister, Dan started a community Facebook page called Station Photos.

He wasn’t expecting much, but the bush telegraph kicked in, and the page had received a thousand ‘likes’ within six days of launch. Pretty soon, tens of thousands of people were liking the page, and contributing their own photos.

A year on, the Station Photos Facebook page has 52,300 followers and has attracted a staggering 30 million views from around the world.

What people love so much about Station Photos is that it’s real: real people taking photos on their cameras and smartphones of what makes them laugh (and cry), the land they love, their kids, their mates and their animals.

It’s a way of life that most Australians living in the cities along the coast never get to experience, yet it embodies so much of the spirit and folklore of Australia.

The success of the Facebook page spawned interest earlier this year from publishers, ABC Books and HarperCollins.

“I thought it was a practical joke when the ABC first came to me and said they wanted to turn the Facebook page into a book,” Dan said.

Six month later and the book, “Outback Stations” was a reality, with an official launch in Darwin three weeks ago.

The book was born from a competition on the Facebook page to show a day in the life of an outback station. The response was positively overwhelming – and the very best of the images are now featured in print. Click on gallery images at base of page to view a sample.

chatsworth station boulia 015

Electric storm on Chatsworth Station, outside Dajarra, northwest Qld

Like the Facebook page, the “Outback Stations” book is a celebration of country Australia and the way bush people live and enjoy life on the land, despite its hardships.

“Every one of the couple of hundred people who have got a photo in the book are over the moon – they couldn’t believe it,” Dan said.

Selections from the tens of thousands of images that have appeared on the Facebook page were made by a panel of judges, including professional photographers.

The images are drawn from right across northern Australia, stretching from Queensland’s Cape York and Gulf regions, across the Barkly and Victoria River Districts in the NT, and through to WA’s Kimberley and Pilbara. Other images come from far-flung stations across central and southern Australia, as far south as remote islands used for grazing off the Tasmanian coast, where cattle are pushed back to the mainland each season during low tides.

Dan has worked as a station cook and gardener across much of northern Australia over the past three decades. He currently runs the kitchen at Manbooloo Station outside Katherine, where he arrived in April this year after several seasons with Milton Jones on Coolibah. Earlier, he worked on properties across Queensland’s Gulf country, slowly developing his interest in photography.

The book’s launch in Darwin at the end of August has attracted a string of media engagements for Dan, including interviews on Imparja and ABC Landline TV, the NT News, and Sydney Daily Telegraph.

The book itself is 200 pages, with hundreds of photos portraying station life. Many carry an explanation and some commentary.

The book has proved to be enormously popular, and a second print run was already being discussed, Dan said.

“I never dreamed it would come to this,” he said.

 

  • Outback Stations is published by ABC Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Recommended retail price is $39.99.

 

Win a free copy of “Outback Stations”

  • ABC Books and HarperCollins have provided two free copies of “Outback Stations” as a giveaway for Beef Central readers. To go into a draw for a copy, simply send an email including your name and postal address, with the words “Outback Stations book draw” in the subject line to cath@beefcentral.com
  • Readers have until 5pm Sunday, September 28 to submit an entry. Winners will be announced Tuesday, September 30.

 

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Comments

  1. eileen scott, 29/05/2015

    Just love the out back Photos in your Would love to win a copy of “Outback Stations”

  2. Ava BAlodis, 25/04/2015

    love the colours and starkness of the outback the inspirations it gives me to create beautiful things

  3. Garry Robinson, 24/04/2015

    Station Photos page has had some beautiful pictures taken by some very dedicated people on the land, and I’m now going to get the book. I regularly share the photos with my brother In law in America

  4. Stephen Bates, 21/02/2015

    I purchased Outback Stations I enjoyed the book but was dissapointed. After watching Landline I assumed all the photos would be by Dan Mc., and all outback settings. This was not the case as I do not consider parts of Vic. Tas Or NSW as being outback. Take this as constructive critism. Cheers…Steve Bates

  5. Jeannie Douglas-McPaul, 23/01/2015

    I came across your book on TV last night and I want to see more, beautiful shots, would make a wonderful gift to send overseas…well done.

  6. Paul Standing, 05/10/2014

    I am a great supporter of any one promoting the folk on the land,their trials and tribulations ,this book has endeavoured to tell the story of families working and raising families in one of the harshest environments in the world .

  7. Jill Pullen, 29/09/2014

    The photographs of Dan McIntosh show every adjective describing our wonderful country.Young, old, wild, courageous, dangerous, changeable, bleak and bountiful,I could go on. His portraiture is sublime, real people keeping out country viable by their hard labour.
    Thank you Dan for a book that should be in every home to show us the people and places we may never get to see.

  8. Susan SALMOND, 27/09/2014

    My mother has purchased a copy of this beautiful book and would love to have one sitting on our coffee table.
    What a great promo for our glorious country.

  9. Glen Cameron, 26/09/2014

    Like Rhondda I enjoy taking photos of rural life and settings, unfortunately I am very much a novice photographer but enjoy seeing other peoples work to try and learn.
    There is so much in a simple photo of a good subject, digital photography has allowed many people to tell a story.

  10. Terry Pointing, 24/09/2014

    I think every little endeavour that brings a little bit of rural Oz into someones life ,enhances our ability to reach out and get our message across to the millions that have never taken the time out to think about us in their busy lives

  11. Arthur Kelly, 23/09/2014

    i would like to get one of these books i have lived in the outback all my life at Tibooburra just away from Cameron corner

  12. Rhondda Alexander, 22/09/2014

    What a great idea. I look forward to getting a book as I am a keen photographer especially of the Channel Country of Queensland where I lived and worked with my husband and three children. I also wrote a book on the plants of the Channel Country

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