PHOTOGRAPHER Jacob Vlatko photographs iconic outback scenes from the Far West and has compiled them into a coffee table book.
Vlatko spent almost all of his youth in Broken Hill, moving to the town from Adelaide as a one-year-old, but didn’t become interested in photography until after high school.
“I wasn’t interest in photography in school as a hobby, it wasn’t til I got older,” Mr Vlatko said.
He said he occasionally would take photos on disposable point-and-shoot cameras on school excursions but hadn’t considered spending more time on it until phone cameras improved in quality.
“I started taking photos when the phone camera came out,” he said.
“I was posting them on Instagram and Facebook and got a bit of interest from people.”
After a few years photographing on his phone, he invested in his first DSLR camera.
“I bought myself a digital DSLR camera, it was a basic camera pack with a kit lens and all that stuff,” Mr Vlatko said.
“I outgrew it within about 12 months.”
He began photographing trips with mates riding motorbikes, or fishing at the lakes with his dad, before becoming interested in landscapes.
“I would be out on stations seeing old relics of woolsheds and stuff, and photograph them as a point of interest in front a sunset because we get pretty amazing sunsets out here.”
Mr Vlatko said he never felt pushed into creativity by his family, but it seemed that his family had a creative gene that was passed onto him.
“There’s definitely creativity in the family,” he said.
“My brother is a musician, my grandfathers on mums side was into photography, especially when travelling.”
Mr Vlatko said with how saturated the photography industry was, it was too risky for him to rely on photography as his sole income, so he also worked as a mechanic.
He said his favourite things to photograph were the lakes and river near Menindee.
“My dad lives in Menindee, he’s got a little block there where we used to spend a lot of time in our childhood, running around, swimming in the lakes,” he said.
“It’s nice because it brings back memories of our childhood there as well.”
Mr Vlatko is selling his photography books via his Facebook and Instagram at @vlatkosphotography
