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PHOTOGRAPHS BY MATTHEW ABBOTT
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By Kurt Mutchler, Editor at Large
In the age of the single image that feeds Instagram, and photojournalism reduced (mostly) to drive-by portraiture, Matthew Abbott’s photographic coverage of Australia’s Aboriginal people goes deep and long. In a flash last week, Abbott won the World Press Photo’s photo story of the year award for his work for this Nat Geo feature, but the work was no one-off assignment.
Matthew’s connection with the people of the Warddeken Indigenous Protected Area began over 10 years ago. He lived there for two years and returned as often as he could. The story and traditional fire-control methods (pictured above, burning off undergrowth) is one he’s always wanted to do: “This is a story of Indigenous people using traditional practices and modern technology that is offering us a potential solution to deal with the climate crisis, while at the same time giving these previously disenfranchised people the opportunity to thrive and live a free life,” Matthew says.
He made three, two-week trips from his home in Sydney for this story. On his second trip, a COVID lockdown prevented him from flying, so he drove 4,300 miles one way (yes, that's not a typo), so he wouldn’t miss photographing the community’s annual walk through its ancestral lands. For the third trip, he had to stay in COVID quarantine for two weeks in a prison-like facility.
Like all of the damn good photographers I’ve been lucky to work with all these years, Matthew’s passion, smarts, keen eye—and most importantly, dedication to the STORY—are the qualities that make him so special.
Scroll below to see a few of Matthew’s photos from the story in our May issue—and see the full story and images here.
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