John Carter is used to being up when most people are asleep. In fact, he gets out of bed earlier on his days off just to watch the stars.
Often he can be found under a moonless sky at Mullinger Swamp, a yabbying waterhole in South Australia's South East close to the Victorian border.
Of all the places John's photographed at night, Mullinger Swamp is his favourite.
You, nature and a camera capturing 25 photos per second.
"You're taking photos constantly all night and you only end up with one minute of time-lapse," John said.
The all-night part he's used to. For 16 years John worked at a bakery in Naracoorte from 10:30pm to 10:00am the next day.
"I was just sleeping most of the [day] and after a while I started realising just how mentally ill I actually was.
"I had no social life working at the bakery ... it just got to me after a while.
Encouraged by a couple of friends at church, he enrolled in a year-long multimedia course in 2007.
"They noticed that I seemed to like doodling with a bit of graphics when I got home from work," John said.
While covering a range of mediums, he took to making time lapse videos — the "in-thing" at the time.
Years on he's joined a community of local astrophotographers and gets out any chance he can.
Country at heart
John first picked up a camera as a seven-year-old boy while living in Frances, a small town on the Victorian border.
"My parents bought me a little Kodak film camera. You know, the one that took those flash cubes, those square ones. Of course, you got about four shots and then needed to replace it," John said.
A stark difference to the Canon 50E he was shooting time lapse with in 2007.
Eager to get a job in media after graduating from the course, any hopes of entering the industry were quickly dashed.
"The jobs in that area are all city jobs basically and I'm not a city person by any stretch of the imagination," John said.
"I should've at least attended the interview and whether I would have got the job or not I don't know."
Instead, he's been working in the freezers at a local meatworks company for the past 13 years.
Making up for lost time
It wasn't until John started astrophotography that he started exploring the region he's lived in his whole life.
"You've only got a 20 minutes drive to get to Cockatoo Lake or Mullinger Swamp. It's an hour to the coast. Basically you can go camping every weekend if you want to," John said.
Blending into the environment in the middle of the night can elicit some incredible moments.
"I was out there out in the water and this pelican flew right over the top of my head, almost took my beanie off. I freaked out.
He's usually looking for a clear cloudless night with no moon. It washes out the Milky Way otherwise.
"Other times you go out when there's a meteorite shower forecast. You want to catch as many as you can."
Sometimes his subjects are ghost mushrooms or old farm ruins.
One of the couples he often shoots with know most of the landowners around the region and ask if they can park at special locations overnight to allow them to photograph.
He shoots with two Canon 6Ds and two crop cameras.
“I've learnt over time you need more than one camera because if you've got one camera doing a time lapse you need another camera just to keep yourself occupied while you're waiting for it to finish," John said.
He bought himself a star tracker this year and has started tracking deep sky objects.
"Being an amateur I’m still struggling to get a good shot of the nebula at the moment," John said.
He doesn't mind the challenge.
"I used to be inside all the time, just sitting at home. I didn't want to go out anywhere," John said.
“It's only been the last 14 years that I've actually started getting out and started enjoying [life].
"I guess I'm making up for lost time."
