Enduring beneath the Stars

I chose not to photograph Uluru from the usual viewpoint. Instead, I worked from another side, allowing the rock to enter the frame quietly, as presence rather than proclamation. Only a portion of its form is visible, enough to recognise it, but not enough to dominate. The landscape is allowed to speak as a whole.

In the foreground, a single tree stands stripped back and weathered, its branches reaching upward into the night. Under a long exposure, the stars trace their paths across the sky, revealing the steady movement of time. The tree, fragile and temporary by comparison, appears to rise taller than Uluru itself, a reminder of how perspective can momentarily invert scale.

Yet the contrast is unmistakable. The tree will fall, return to the earth, and disappear. The stars will continue their passage. Uluru, shaped over millions of years and cared for by Anangu for countless generations, remains. Time moves visibly here, recorded in trails of light, growth, collapse, and endurance, within a single frame.

Standing there, the silence returned. No spectacle, no urgency. Just the quiet coexistence of change and permanence. Life passing through. Stone remaining.

Seen through Vertique, the composition rises from desert grass through the skeletal tree into the slow arc of the stars. Uluru anchors the scene without asking for attention. It becomes a measure of time rather than an object within it. The image reflects impermanence beside endurance, and the humility found in recognising where we sit between the two.