We arrived in Sydney in 1978. From our first trips to the Blue Mountains where we saw our first wild possums, brush-turkeys (Alectura lathami) and sugar gliders (Petaurus breviceps) gliding between tall eucalypt trees, we were absolutely enchanted by the Australian bush and longed to photograph what we saw.  

We saved for our first camera, a few reference books and a car. We then left our jobs and took to the road to circumnavigate Australia. We travelled from one national park to the next, photographing everything we were able to catch a glimpse of.  

After two and a half years on the road, spent mostly in the drier parts north of the Tropic of Capricorn, we were heading to Perth. We arrived quite late and knowing that it’s best not to enter a city at night, we pitched our little tent somewhere north of Bullsbrook. When we woke up the next morning, we were surrounded by kangaroo paws and other wildflowers, and everything was covered in dew. We felt like we had woken up in paradise and there-and-then we realised that we had found our new home. Years later, we got confirmation that it was a good decision, when a photograph I took on that memorable morning of a kangaroo paw ended up on a $5.00 Australian stamp.  

In the early days it wasn’t always a smooth ride, but fortunately we never needed to be motivated by lack of food. As we slowly expanded our clientele it got better and better. Then one day a client requested a range of underwater photographs, which we did not have, so we recruited several underwater photographers and thus the photographic agency Lochman Transparencies was born.  

It was a pivotal moment for us, but it was a tricky one. We did not want to lose any clients and at the same time we did not want to become mere administrators. We longed to be in the bush photographing wildlife, and the business was not yet strong enough to employ a librarian. But we somehow managed to balance the two.  

For part of every year we lived our dream, exploring the natural wonders of Australia. After a hike to Prince Regent River Nature Reserve on assignment to photograph the book North-West Bound, we were inextricably drawn to Kimberley.  

We realised how exceptionally stunning this part of WA is, but we also understood that it remained one of the greatest wildernesses on Earth thanks to its taxing climate and often impassably rugged terrain. But we were ready for the challenge. We made numerous hikes to the Kimberley wilderness, the longest one 21 days away from our vehicle. On that occasion, a tour guide noticed our car hidden among the bushes and when he returned with the next tour and found it still there, he alerted the Derby Police thinking that we must have been lost. Fortunately, the Derby Police had been made aware of what we were doing, so there was no search. 

The back page of early issues of LANDSCOPE was dedicated to wildlife photographs under the heading ‘Looking Back’. The first issue was published with an appeal to readers: ‘Looking Back is the place for your photographs of Western Australian wildlife.’