PROFILE | Rodney Hyett Photographer

Shortly after abandoning studies to be an architect I drifted into photography by way of a job as assistant to a studio of five photographers in South Melbourne in 1976. In 1982, after two years assisting overseas, I returned to Melbourne and began in earnest as a freelance photographer specializing in architecture, mostly for magazines. With some fashion work thrown in for good measure. Raised in Geelong and having surfed since the age of twelve, I survived only five years in the metropolis before the pull of the ocean got the better of me and in 1987 I moved to Port Campbell on the rugged, south west coast of Victoria. It wasn’t only seduction by wild, remote and uncrowded surf, there was also a girl involved. The break from the city was not entirely clean and I continued working for the magazines in Melbourne part time whilst building a house near the coast. In 1995 I published my first book on the Great Ocean Road, a traveller’s guide that sold well and started the transition to self-publishing my landscape photography. A black and white calendar on the Great Ocean Road was added to the publications in 1998 and was my main photographic project each year up until 2013. Since then new directions are afoot, but always on or around the beach. Capturing the ocean in all its moods is an activity entirely compatible with my pursuit of waves up and down the coast - the Aquarian in me being entirely to blame.