On that morning we were all in the kitchen of our rented terrace in Corlette Street, Cooks Hill laughing,
joking and preparing for our day.

 

When the quake hit, I was sitting on the toilet (really). It began with a few rattles then quickly intensified to such a strength that I thought a truck had hit the house, a second later the realisation came to me that this was coming up from the earth, an earthquake.

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Disbelief is your first reaction. My trust in the earth not pulling the rug out from under me was permanently broken. The earth will move when it sees fit and there is nothing, we can do about it. The damage was severe and widespread. I had friends that lost houses and businesses. Most tragic was the loss of life and injury.

 

For the next couple of weeks after the quake Newcastle CBD and Cooks Hill (where I lived) was shut off from the outside world while rescues and demolition took place. My girlfriend at the time lived up on Ocean Terrace by the sea. I remember walking between our 2 houses in the silence and stillness avoiding roadblocks. For the next weeks and months, I couldn’t go to sleep without thinking the earthquake was going to come back like some malevolent god to punish us some more. I’ve often wondered if other people experienced similar thoughts.

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We were all young artists then. I had shot these 35 mm slides on a camera that was on loan from the art school I was working at. To my disappointment the light meter was faulty and so these shots that were taken in the immediate aftermath of the quake are all over exposed. I have done what I can to correct them sufficiently to provide a record of that moment in time.