A voice for the bush

By Jessica Howard

An open farming field at sunset. The sun sits barely above the treeline, shining rays out across the grassy field. You can see low mountains in the distance along the horizon.

Image: Kate Nelder

Image: Kate Nelder

Photographer and writer Jessica Howard (Bachelor of Journalism ’03) is committed to sharing the spirit of rural Australia. Jessica writes for Contact about her most recent endeavour – to amplify the stories of outback Australia as the editor and publisher of Bush Journal.

My Dad had a habit of talking about his succession plans at the dinner table, while we tucked into sausages full of gristle and lumpy potatoes.

“If you want to come back here, it’ll be yours,” he’d declare. “But if you don’t, then you’ll have to settle for less.”

I was eight-years-old.

This is a common conversation in the bush. Family properties are passed down from generation to generation and parents begin the task of assessing worthy contenders pretty early.

As it happened, I was not.

The dirt in the cattle yards made my eyes water and I preferred reading books to riding horses – so I traveled as far as I thought possible at the time: Brisbane – to study journalism at UQ.

My career took me abroad while my siblings went back to work on our family’s Central Queensland property and I was feeling a good distance from the upbringing I was trying to escape.

Until I wasn’t.

I think when you’re born somewhere, little pieces of that place attach themselves to the walls of your cells, and bob around inside of you, jangling like a set of keys.

Jessica Howard stands with her hands on her hips, looking to her right wearing jeans and a work shirt. She's standing in a paddock.
Landscape photo of a pen of white sheep with a farmer standing in the corner

Image: Elena Chalker

Landscape photo of a dirt road with bush either side. The sun is setting and there is a ute driving along the road, into the distance.

Image: Kate Nelder

Landscape photo of a pen of white sheep with a farmer standing in the corner

Image: Elena Chalker

Landscape photo of a dirt road with bush either side. The sun is setting and there is a ute driving along the road, into the distance.

Image: Kate Nelder
Photograph of woman in a long sleeve black and white striped shirt with a corrugated iron wall behind her.

Image: Bush Journal

Image: Bush Journal

Photo of a man on a horse, riding through long grass with a windmill in the distance.

Image: Bush Journal

Image: Bush Journal

Back in Australia and working as a writer and photographer, I found myself gravitating towards rural assignments, and connecting deeply with the people I worked for and with.

And so, in collaboration with a photography group Beauty in the Bush Collective, I launched Bush Journal; a quarterly paper which features creative work from around Australia.

Photograph of woman in a long sleeve black and white striped shirt with a corrugated iron wall behind her.

Image: Bush Journal

We have contributors from the Wheatbelt of Western Australia to the rolling green hills of western Victoria; photographers who are also graziers and writers who are farmers.

In our first two editions, we talked loneliness and responsibility with Kate Nelder, a 25-year-old woman who manages Wyworrie Station in the Northern Territory alone.

Photo of a man on a horse, riding through long grass with a windmill in the distance.

Image: Bush Journal

We met the Chalker family of Cowra, NSW, working towards producing fine merino wool, despite a run of bad seasons.

And through Henrietta Attard, a writer and photographer from Mackay, Queensland, we explored how sometimes a crop can feel like family.

These ordinary, beautiful stories amplify the voices of people living in the bush, and hopefully reveal new layers of rural Australia to urban readers.

We know even though most Australians call the coastal fringe home, there’s an enduring sense the spirit of our country lies beyond the Great Dividing Range.

A copy of the Bush Journal hangs on a door of an old shed.

Image: Bush Journal

Family in front of a clothes line. There are six children and one mother and three rows of washing hanging on the clothes line.

Image: Pip Williams

Several copies of Bush Journal are folded in half and flying on a field of long grass in golden sunlight.

Image: Ellie Morris

Birdseye view of a pen filled of sheep and a shed.

Image: Lisa Alexander

A copy of the Bush Journal hangs on a door of an old shed.

Image: Bush Journal

Family in front of a clothes line. There are six children and one mother and three rows of washing hanging on the clothes line.

Image: Pip Williams

Several copies of Bush Journal are folded in half and flying on a field of long grass in golden sunlight.

Image: Ellie Morris

Birdseye view of a pen filled of sheep and a shed.

Image: Lisa Alexander

I’m aware I’m investing my time in an out-of-mode medium, but I believe photos are meant to be felt and touched.

Taking a moment from your day to leaf through a newspaper, feeling the pages crumple in your fingers, is a deeply nostalgic and tangible act that is befitting of the stories we’re trying to tell.

Newspapers are disappearing from rural and regional shelves and we’re worse for it.

Man reading Bush Journal and sitting on a truck with a hill in the background.

Image: Bush Journal

Image: Bush Journal

My hope is Bush Journal fuels creativity in rural areas and inspires photographers and writers to share their stories, and explore their connection to the land, animals and each other.

What a wonderful gift to give ourselves in what feels a very disconnected time.

I never made it home to live — but telling rural stories has helped me feel connected to it, and the jangle inside of me has become inaudible.

Cover of Bush Journal print edition

Find your copy of Bush Journal here.

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