ABOUT

"When Heartbeat was published in 1994, I was already working on Rainchild, except I did not know it. In the winter of 1993 I made my first trip to Australia, asked by friend-photographer Max Pam to join him and his two children Eko and Jack on a drive from East to West Australia.  They had lived in England for some years and were moving back to Fremantle near Perth, on the westcoast. Max wanted his children to have the sense of the country while moving back. In 1993 I was finishing Heartbeat.

That first trip to Australia changed everything. For some reason being on the other side of the planet helped me look at the previous years, helped me see that I was doing ok. Obviously this influenced my photography. Making dummies for Heartbeat introduced me to another world. One where trying to put things into a context became as important as photographing. The house for the context was the book. From the start I began making dummies, knowing I was far from ready with a series of photographs, and letting these dummies show me my paths."

— Machiel Botman