About

Rob Blakers, born in 1957, grew up in Canberra, close to the ACT Ranges and the south coast of NSW. He took up bush walking in high school and cross-country skiing during the course of a four-year zoology degree at the Australian National University. This degree culminated in a year long research project into bogong moths and other insect life in the Main Range region of the Kosciuszko National Park in NSW.

Upon completing university in 1980 he travelled to Tasmania for a three week cross country skiing holiday. When the snow failed to materialize, he began to work with the Wilderness Society in the campaign to prevent the damming of the Franklin River. This was an extraordinary time in the lives of many people, and a campaign which was ultimately successful in its aim of protecting much of Tasmania’s southwest as a World Heritage Area. Today, however, large tracts of wild country in Tasmania's magnificent takayna/tarkine remain open to both logging and mining, which has the potential to devastate this extraordinary region.

Images from Rob’s collection have been used extensively for nature conservation and climate, biodiversity and environmental campaigns. Uses have included a wide variety of books, posters, cards, calendars and diaries and in magazines and publications ranging from New Scientist and Outdoor Australia to the Annual Report of the Bob Brown Foundation.

Many images on this site were taken using film view cameras – a medium format Horseman and a large format Ebony. Nikkor and Schneider lenses ranging from 65mm to 300mm were used. More recent images were made using Canon DSLR digital cameras. For a number of years Rob photographed with an Arca Swiss/Phase One medium format digital system with Rodenstock and Schneider lenses. He currently uses a Fuji GFX system and the Canon R5, with lens focal lengths ranging from 17mm to 500mm.