‘World of wool’ photo gallery
Have you got any interesting photos that you’d like to share with other readers of Beyond the Bale? If so, please email the image and a brief description to the editor of Beyond the Bale Richard Smith at richard.smith@wool.com
The golden fleece
Shearer turned photographer James Braszell (@jamesbraszellphotography) is based out of country Victoria but travels the country capturing images of people who live and work in rural and outback Australia. This unique shot was taken earlier this year at the 3,370 square km Mt Eba Station in the geographical centre of South Australia which is owned by the Cousins and Whittlesea families, and Australian Pastoral. Shaw Shearing & Crutching put in an incredible effort to get through 29,401 sheep in just 19 days.
Tasmanian midwife now preg scanning sheep
With 20 years’ experience as a midwife, Samara Leighton knows plenty about pregnancy scanning, but has since turned her skills to sheep scanning. Samara, who lives on a hobby farm in northern Tasmania, completed a week-long scanning course in NSW two years ago. She and her husband Dan then built a portable trailer fitted out with scanning equipment and launched a company, Robinson PregScan, that has been pregnancy scanning across Tasmania ever since. PHOTO: Amy Lyon Creative.
Queuing up at the unique Deeargee woolshed
Built in 1872, the octagonal Deeargee shearing shed at Gostwyck on the Northern Tablelands of NSW is a national landmark. Viewed from inside, its successive roofs of galvanised iron with side walls of glass cast a unique light on the Sutherland family’s (@deeargee_pastoral_co_) hundreds of superfine Merinos that are shorn there each year.
Fleece as white as… snow
Early last month, parts of the Northern Tablelands of NSW received a heavy blanketing of snow that hadn’t been seen in decades. “These are some of my favourite conditions to photograph; just driving around with the cameras at the ready looking for subjects!” said Hunter Valley-based photographer Oliver Hubbard (@ollyhubz). “This group of trees were exactly that, and I just loved the sheep huddled below trying to find some shelter.”
Remains of biodegraded wool jacket
Tara Viggo, whose company Paper Theory (@paper_theory) creates modern, easy to use sewing patterns, posted on Instagram this photo of all that remains of a wool jacket – a zip fastener – that she dug up in her back garden: “I just found the remainder of what I assume is the previous homeowner’s jacket in my back garden. But with a helping hand from nature it turned itself into compost because it was made from wool. If it had been polyester or any other synthetic fabric, it would just be another piece of plastic polluting the garden,” Tara said.
From red to green
Photographer and grazier Wendy Sheehan (@bulldust_and_mulga) lives with her family on a 1,000 square km property in western Queensland where they run a self-replacing flock of Merinos. They weren’t as badly affected by the floods in March as some people who lost their homes, livestock and infrastructure. Recovery could take years for those badly affected people, but on the soil things began to look brighter within weeks. Here is a series of before, during, and after shots from a time lapse camera that shows how quickly the red landscape on Wendy’s property turned green after rain.
AWI film on show at Martin Place, Sydney
AWI’s Wear Wool, Not Waste award-winning 60-second campaign film was played at the Sydney Film Festival 280 times from 4 to 15 June, reaching a pedestrian foot traffic audience in the CBD of 1.4 million. See the campaign film at www.woolmark.com/wear-wool
This article appeared in the Spring 2025 edition of AWI’s Beyond the Bale magazine that was published in September 2025. Reproduction of the article is encouraged.
