Image 0 - Dead of Night
Image 1 - Dead of Night
Image 2 - Dead of Night
Image 3 - Dead of Night
Image 4 - Dead of Night
Image 5 - Dead of Night
Image 6 - Dead of Night
Image 7 - Dead of Night
Image 8 - Dead of Night
Image 9 - Dead of Night
Image 10 - Dead of Night
Image 11 - Dead of Night
Image 12 - Dead of Night
Image 13 - Dead of Night
Image 14 - Dead of Night
Image 15 - Dead of Night
Image 16 - Dead of Night
Image 17 - Dead of Night
Image 18 - Dead of Night
Image 19 - Dead of Night
Image 20 - Dead of Night
Image 21 - Dead of Night
Image 22 - Dead of Night
Image 23 - Dead of Night
Image 24 - Dead of Night
Image 25 - Dead of Night
Image 26 - Dead of Night
Image 27 - Dead of Night
Image 28 - Dead of Night
Image 29 - Dead of Night
Image 30 - Dead of Night
Image 31 - Dead of Night
Image 32 - Dead of Night
Image 33 - Dead of Night
Image 34 - Dead of Night
Image 35 - Dead of Night
Image 36 - Dead of Night
Image 37 - Dead of Night
Image 38 - Dead of Night
Image 39 - Dead of Night
Image 40 - Dead of Night
Image 41 - Dead of Night
Image 42 - Dead of Night
Image 43 - Dead of Night
Image 44 - Dead of Night
Image 45 - Dead of Night
Image 46 - Dead of Night
Image 47 - Dead of Night
Image 48 - Dead of Night
Image 49 - Dead of Night
Image 50 - Dead of Night
Image 51 - Dead of Night
Image 52 - Dead of Night
Image 53 - Dead of Night
Image 54 - Dead of Night
Image 55 - Dead of Night
Image 56 - Dead of Night
Image 57 - Dead of Night
Image 58 - Dead of Night
Image 59 - Dead of Night
Image 60 - Dead of Night
Image 61 - Dead of Night
Image 62 - Dead of Night

Dead of Night

On the road between the two main towns of Tasmania is a farm filled with dead trees. I tended to notice them as I drove by every few months.

One random night, I decide to drive down to this dead tree farm with my camera and a construction light. I sneak my car off the road and hop the farmer's fence, feeling impish, as a vivid memory flashes of the time I got chased off an apple farm in Tasmania by a gunshot (not without reason).

I walk, cautiously, in the moonless dark, with my camera and my light, to the first dead tree. Suddenly I'm flushed with the feeling of being watched. Looking around, to my surprise, I see that I am actually being watched. A sea of bright eyes are staring at me. I freeze stiff, my eyes trained on eyes trained on me.

Gradually, then suddenly, I see the faint silhouettes of sheep. A couple dozen of them probably wondering, like me a second ago, what the hell they are looking at.

I find my way to the first dead tree, a few sheep following behind, and set up the construction light. I turn it on while keeping a keen eye on the farmer's house, hoping his light doesn't also turn on. Nothing.

I line things up and take a picture. Except nothing happens. No click. Try again. Nothing.

Profanity flows as my cold, dexterity-failing fingers fiddle with the camera controls. But neither fiddling nor profanity works.

So at this rather strange moment, shivering on a farm in the middle of Tasmania in the dead of night, in the company of creepy sheep and creepier trees, my camera is bricked.

Lucky I had my phone.