In association with the the opening of the annual Blue Mountains Portraits exhibition 2025, Australian portrait photographer Ben Pearse setup a portrait studio at the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre. The result was 120 portraits of the community who came and sat for a portrait with Ben. All of the images were shot live and tethered to a monitor so that participants could choose their favourite image for keeping after their brief portrait sitting. The images were available to the public to see via a nightly projection at Civic Place Katoomba until April 13th, 2025. They were also available for the public to see via a digital display at the Cultural Centre until the close of the portrait exhibition 2025. Below is all the portraits captured during this wonderful Blue Mountains community project.
Ben Pearse is an Australian portrait photographer based in the Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia.
It was great to see the return of the annual Blue Mountains Winter Magic Festival at Katoomba on Saturday 24th June 2023. Nice sunny weather on the day attracted a big crowd of festival goers who enjoyed the parade and all the other activities and performancers throughout the day. It was nice to wander the festival and grab a few photos over the day when something caught my eye. Once again it was a great effort by all the volunteers who put in allot of time and effort to ensure we get to enjoy a great Winter Magic Festival….
Here a few images I captured during the day
Ben Pearse is a Blue Mountains photographer based in Katoomba-website
Weather forecasts for some snow around June 10th, 2021 in the Blue Mountains had me intrigued. It was starting to look good for a decent dumping. I’ve been trying to get a great snow photo of the iconic Three Sisters for many years and I thought, perhaps, just perhaps, this could be it, as they had forecast snow down to 600metres. As I packed my camera bag the night before, I’d sneak a peak out the window every few minutes, to see if the snow had started to fall.
I woke up about an hour before sunrise and the snow had begun to fall. You could tell that the snow flakes weren’t as large as the last snowfall and perhaps a little on the wet side. I decided there was no point in trying to shoot the three sisters at sunrise as it was very overcast and not enough snow had fallen yet. After a couple of hours I decided it was time to walk down, (yep I live just up the road from echo point). The snow was falling pretty consistently down at echo point, however the jamison valley was a complete white out at this point and you couldn’t see anything of the 3 sisters. You could barley see out a few metres from the hand railing at times…
Enjoying the snow at Echo point- June 10th 2021
I decided that I would wait and see if the heavy fog in the jamison valley might lift over time. As there wasn’t that much option for still images, I decided to film some video of the snow around the echo point lookout areas…You can watch it on my YouTube channel link below.
It was evident after a few hours that the valley was not going to clear and provide an opportunity for my Three sisters image. I was quite sure that the 3 sisters did have an amount of snow on them, how much, well that I guess I’ll never know…So the quest continues and I’ll continue to try until I click the camera shutter, on the image I’ve had in my head for many years. I only took a few more still images that day and I’ve posted them below….
This is my entry into the Blue Mountains Portraits 2021 exhibition, currently on show at the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre in Katoomba. “In this image of Becky, I wanted to capture and combine two key aspects of Becky’s life, her work with the National Parks and Wildlife Service and as a long-time senior performer with Wagana Aboriginal Dancers. Both of these life paths enable Becky to honour and to be on Country, which as a Kamilaroi woman, is very important to her”. Subject- Becky Chatfield Photographer: Ben Pearse Medium: Photographic print, AO size.
Note: This image went on to win the “People’s Choice Award” at the Blue Mountains portrait exhibition in March 2021.
In late November 2019 the Blue Mountains in NSW Australia would see the start of a unprecedented bushfire season that would destroy approximately 80% of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage area. Drought conditions across Australia in the leadup to the fire season left the soil with very little moisture which helped fuel hundreds of bushfires across the nation. By the end of the fire season, 34 people would tragically lose their lives and over 46 million acres (186,000 square kilometres) of land would be burnt. Hundreds of millions of mammals, reptiles and birds would perish during the fires…This fire season would be known as the “Black Summer Bushfires”.
I first took note of a very small bushfire that was burning around the Ruined Castle on 27th November 2019 in the jamison valley in Katoomba, NSW. Over the course of the next few days this fire would spread onto the Narrowneck plateau and eventually into the megalong valley. Most of the images I captured are from the Ruined Castle bushfire.
The Beginning-Ruined Castle Bushfire- November 27th 2019
Small puff of smoke near ruined castle
Begrimed- Ben Pearse 2019
Thick dust laden smoke starts to choke the air on sunset in Katoomba. The setting sun takes on an eerie feeling, a forewarning perhaps of troubling times to come…
Eerie sunsets
On December 1st, 2019, the Ruined Castle bushfire flares up and races up the sheer sandstone cliffs on the Narrowneck plateau in Katoomba. Despite a strong prevailing breeze against it, the fire raged effortlessly up and down the sheer vertical walls and pushed closer towards the township of Katoomba. Precision water bombing from the RFS helicopter slowed the fire spread before nightfall. RFS ground crews worked throughout the night to control the blaze along the narrowneck plateau.
Fire rages on the narrowneck plateau cliffline
Fire engulfs the treeline on narrowneck plateau
Thick plumes of smoke choke the air
Fire climbs up and down the sheer sandstone walls in minutes
Dry conditions fuel the fires- December 1st 2019
At night concerned local residents would view the Ruined castle bushfire from Echo point lookout. At night you could clearly see the location of the fire as the flames would become visible in the darker conditions.
Night view of the ruined castle fire from echo point lookout
Line of fire in the jamison valley, Katoomba, Blue Mountains, Australia
Echo point providing a great viewing platform for the ruined castle bushfire
A wall of flames at night in the jamison valley, Blue Mountains.
Nightfire- Katoomba, Blue Mountains, Australia- December 3rd-2019.
Fire burns up into Pitts Amphitheatre, Katoomba, NSW.
Fire burns a path onto Mount Solitary. In the background the Kowmung river fire rages. This fire would go on to join with the the Green Wattle creek fire.
Ruined Castle fire flares up in gusty dry conditions- December 10th 2019. Planes and helicopters water bomb from above and bring the fire back under control.
Fire returns and burns in behind the iconic Ruined Castle sandstone formations. This was near the point where the fire originated 2 weeks ago.
A small flareup on narrowneck plateau as misty conditions permeate the night…
A backburn that was implemented to stop the spread of the massive Gospers Mountains fire, broke containment lines and entered the grose valley. The grose valley fire produced a huge pyrocumulus fire cloud that dominated the skyline…The Gospers Mountains fire was unstoppable and burnt over 1.2 million acres, becoming the largest forest fire in Australian history.
Pyrocumulus Cloud- Grose valley fire 2019
Gospers Breath- Grose valley fire 2019
Note: I would like to personally thank all the incredible and tireless work that the Emergency workers do across Australia each fire season. Thankyou!
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