A recent graduate of RMIT’s journalism program with a diverse range of media experience, I am a driven, detail-oriented journalist with a flair for dynamic storytelling that isn’t afraid to think outside the box.
Take a peek at some samples of my work below:
The Big Issue: Finger Fights
In the dim glow of a carpentry workshop in Ohlstadt, Bavaria, Josef Utzschneider attaches a 51-kilo cement block to a pulley system and lifts it, using only his middle finger, as if it were a bag of groceries. “I remember watching him do it and thinking that it seemed like nothing to him,” recalls Munich-based photographer Angelika Jakob of Utzschneider’s training for the German Finger Wrestling Championship. The rules of finger wrestling (known locally as fingerhakeln) are simple. When the referee yells “Zieht!” you pull until either you or your opponent succeeds in dragging the other’s finger across their edge…
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The Big Issue: The Forest for the EVs
Garry Lotulung moves through the verdant jungle of Indonesia’s volcanic Halmahera island – a drone strapped across his back, a camera swinging from his neck. By his side, a local fixer leads the way. The two men are searching for the Hongana Manyawa, an Indigenous tribe whose forest home is being carved apart for nickel – the semi-precious metal is a key component of the batteries powering the burgeoning electric vehicle industry. “My intention is to help the subjects of this work – this community, the Indigenous tribes, the fishermen, the farmers, the people living near the smelters,” Lotulung says…
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The Big Issue: In Good Hands
Imagine a stranger approaching you in your home town and asking you to hold hands with your father or son for a photograph. It’s a simple request, but one that can carry an unexpected weight – one that Bulgarian photographer Valery Poshtarov has spent the last four years unpacking. In his ongoing series Father and Son, Poshtarov has travelled across 11 countries, capturing hundreds of these moments between adult men: sometimes tender, sometimes awkward, and often revealing. Poshtarov steps into strangers’ lives – in wheat factories, garages or even priests’ homes – and asks them to hold hands. “I’m just…
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The Big Issue: 2B or Not 2B?
In New Jersey, the General Pencil factory has worn its blue collar proudly since 1889. Family owned and operated for six generations, not a whole lot has changed during that time. But then again, neither have pencils. This is not lost on New York-based photographer Christopher Payne. “A pencil is such a simple, humble, everyday object that you take for granted, that there’s power in,” he says. “And it’s like that because you don’t expect it to be.” Inside General Pencil, striking red-and-white patches emblazoned on charcoal work shirts slice through the darkness of the factory floor, announcing the names…
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The Big Issue: Gust for Life
It’s a bird, it’s a plane…it’s-a me, Mario? When you see a giant plumber undulating in the Atlantic breeze high above a beach in Lancashire, you realise that truly anything is possible. Attracting scores of kite enthusiasts from around the world, the St Annes International Kite Festival lashes vivid colours onto the grey coastal skies, transforming this stretch of beach into a fever dream where ripstop nylon meets unrepentant whimsy for one wild weekend. London photographer Jack Kenyon is often drawn to the more eccentric corners of British community life, counting giant vegetables, dog shows and an official swan census…
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The Big Issue: All The Stops
“There was nothing but the Kazakh Steppe all around us – grassland that just goes on for ever and ever. It’s almost like the sea. We were driving on a tiny little road that slowly started to disappear until it was actually gone,” says Canadian photographer Christopher Herwig. “All the grass was just kind of standing up behind us, and we realised we didn’t know where the road was anymore. For about an hour, we panicked. We didn’t know whether to go north, south, east or west – it was as if we were in a boat in the middle…
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The Big Issue: Force of Nature
Photographer Ciril Jazbec documents the timeless splendour of Bhutan’s primeval forests and glacial mountains, and discusses their uncertain future. In a world beset by a reluctance to tackle global warming, the ancient wilds of Bhutan are a breath of fresh air, literally. This tiny kingdom on the eastern edge of the Himalayas is one of the few countries on Earth that is not just carbon neutral, but carbon negative. “Bhutan is a carbon sink,” says photographer Ciril Jazbec. He was inspired to travel to Bhutan when he discovered their constitutional commitment to keeping 60 per cent of land as permanent…
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The Big Issue: Click Bait
Commercial fisherman and photographer Corey Arnold documents the occupational hazards of crab fishing in Alaska’s Bering Sea, and explains why it’s totally worth it – so long as you don’t mind the smell. Pete Whelan is a freelance writer who won’t be eating seafood for a while.Originally published in The Big Issue #707, 15/3/2024 Next time you’re having a rough day at the office, remember that photographer and commercial fisherman Corey Arnold spends weeks at a time on a crabbing boat off the coast of Alaska in the icy Bering Sea. There, the aromas of rotting sea creatures and diesel…
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The Big Issue: (Bag)Pipe Dreams
On a Monday morning in February 1976, the piercing squall of bagpipescuts through the usual thrum of Melbourne’s Swanston Street. Thesource of this aural intrusion? A young AC/DC on the back of a flatbedtruck, instruments in hand, filming the video for their latest single. One of AC/DC’s best-loved tunes, ‘It’s a Long Way to the Top (If YouWanna Rock’n’Roll)’ is a cautionary tale of the struggles of a hard-workingrock band. It’s been covered by everyone from Motörhead to Hanson. In the clip, we see Acca Dacca thrashing it out in their signature four-to-the-floor style, flanked by the Rats of Tobruk…
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The Big Issue: Lap of the Gods
The Bathurst 1000 is Australia’s most beloved motorsports event, but beneath the pageantry lies one of the world’s most dangerous racetracks. Much has changed over the 60 years of the Bathurst 1000. Once a testing ground for unmodified sedans from car dealerships, the track now swarms each October with V8 Supercars emblazoned with corporate logos. They hurtle along the winding road at speeds in excess of 200 kilometres an hour. Since day one, though, the summit of Mount Panorama in the NSW town has quietly presided over the squealing tires and photo finishes – its sharp hills and hairpin bends…
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Melbourne Music Community Rages as Tote Owners Double Down (Audio/Article)
The notoriously sticky carpets of the Tote have played host to generations of Melbourne’s music fans over the decades, as well as plethora of Australian rock royalty from local legends like Paul Kelly, You Am I, and the Hoodoo Gurus to international stars including the White Stripes and Mudhoney.
The venue was recently listed for sale , now finding itself in the midst of escalating controversy following an unexpected change in sale conditions after a successful crowdfunding campaign that sought to secure its future as a live music venue.
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Appraising the Intangible: Victoria’s Cultural Heritage Problem (Feature Article)
Deep into the heart of Melbourne’s CBD, I roamed. I had been led on a fool’s errand, and now found myself blindly fumbling through peak-hour foot traffic, searching for a non-existent parcel collection point. I heard a familiar voice call out to me. Looking around, I couldn’t find its source among the blank, vaguely discontent faces of the rat race. “Pete!” the voice cried again. That’s when I realised it was coming from inside the construction site. I poked my face through a gap in the fence and found myself face-to-face with an old friend: Ian Ostericher. I first met…
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Implantable Technology on the Rise (TV Package)
Part of a movement known as biohacking, implantable technology shows no signs of slowing down as the relationship between humans and technology grows closer.
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How Australia’s Relationship with Alcohol is Changing (Data Story)
Australia’s consumption of alcohol per capita is nearing historic lows according to a study of Australia’s alcohol intake since 1961 published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in September 2019.
The study, Apparent Consumption of Alcohol, uses data from the Department of Home Affairs, the Australian Taxation Office and the National Health Survey, documenting a steep fall in Australians’ consumption of beer since 1961 and its impact on Australia’s declining total intake of alcohol.
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The Game of Love, and How COVID Changed the Rules (Colour Story)
COVID has changed dating forever. Happenstance flings in clubs and romantic nights out on the town have been rendered ancient history as the compounding loneliness of endless lockdowns has largely moved romance into the realm of online dating. A daunting proposition to begin with, the pitfalls of the online dating scene have only been magnified by social-distancing, curfews, the vaccination status of potential partners, and of course, the risk of catching a life-threatening virus. Many of Melbourne’s brave singles have nevertheless risen to the challenge of trying to negotiate love in this brave new world, their journeys leading them from…
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IATSE Deal on Working Conditions ‘Not Enough’, Union Members Say (Hard News Story)
Members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees have expressed dissatisfaction with a last-minute deal struck yesterday with major Hollywood studios to prevent an industry-wide strike over pay and working conditions. The deal, yet to be ratified by union members, addressed long-held concerns in the industry over dangerously long working hours and guaranteed a 10-hour rest period between daily shoots, as well as 3% annual wage hikes and improvements in pay. But many IATSE members planed to vote against ratifying the deal, saying it is still not enough. “I guess it’s a great start but the problem is this still…
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Aged Care in Crisis (Radio Package)
Australian aged care workers have not yet received the first installment of the $800 retention bonus promised by Prime Minister Scott Morrison during a speech at the National Press Club on February 1st. The payment received criticism due to its status as a taxable bonus: many say that it is not enough, has been issued in lieu of a pay rise for aged care workers and that the timing of the announcement is disingenuous, coming too late and shortly before a federal election. The federal government’s inaction on the findings of last year’s The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality…
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City of Yarra Announce Grant for Homelessness Exhibition (Hard News Story)
The City of Yarra announced a $15,000 grant for a photo exhibition on homelessness in a council meeting at Richmond Town Hall today. City of Yarra Councillor Stephen Jolly said the project, Experiences of Homelessness, was “useful auxiliary” to the council’s homelessness strategy. “Something like this can have a big impact in highlighting the crisis we have at the moment. “However, if one was to say that’s all we need to do, it would be a mistake,” he said. The City of Yarra’s 2019 Homelessness Strategy implemented coordinated and compassionate crisis response, early intervention for those at risk, and prevention…
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Ali MC and Experiences of Homelessness (Partner Colour Story)
Journalist and photographer Alister McKeich, known professionally as Ali MC, has been imprisoned by the Bangladesh military, beaten to within an inch of his life in Saigon, and held at gunpoint in Jamaica. But for Experiences of Homelessness, a multimedia exhibition focused on Melbourne’s homeless crisis, Ali has focused his lens a little closer to home. “It started when I met a lady by the name of Cheryl who was selling the big issue outside of Melbourne Central in April, 2000. “We just kind of got chatting, and as you may have noticed from my writing and what I do,…
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ABC Journalist Russell Jackson Awarded Gold Quill for AFL Exposé (Hard News Story)
ABC journalist Russell Jackson won the Gold Quill Award tonight for his article on racism in the AFL, The Persecution of Robert Muir is the Story Football Doesn’t Want to Hear. Director for the Centre for Advancing Journalism Andrew Dodd said Jackson’s win at the Melbourne Press Club’s yearly Quill Awards ceremony underscores changing perspectives in the Victorian media’s coverage of racism in sport. “It has sparked long overdue apologies and contributed significantly to a wider community conversation,” Dodd said in his presentation of the Gold Quill Award. The Persecution of Robert Muir “transformed Muir’s life”, he said. Published by…
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RECORD OF THE WEEK: NEIL YOUNG – DEAD MAN (1996)
Neil Young’s improvised, unaccompanied soundtrack, channeled largely through his mythical Gibson Les Paul, “Old Black”, seems spiritually connected with the stark monochromatic landscape and visceral beauty of Dead Man, Jim Jarmusch’s cult psychedelic western. While writing Dead Man – a reimagining of the American Wild West interspersed with the metaphysical poetry of William Blake – Jarmusch reportedly spliced together cassettes of some of Neil Young’s instrumental passages to inspire him as he wrote, calling Young’s playing “masterfully, beautifully damaged rock-and-roll music—perfect imperfection.” With Young’s DNA already in the bedrock of Deadman, the film and his his style aligned perfectly, and…
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Pete Whelan 