Formed during the Pleistocene Epoch, the dune system outside of Lancelin, about one hundred and twenty kilometres north of Perth Western Australia, is relatively young compared to the surrounding landscape, but it marks an ancient coastline inland from the present. During the holiday season dune buggies and four wheel drives churn up the sands as drivers compete with sandboarders to turn the dunes into a theme park for people who like messing with nature, yet these weekend adventurers may yet save the dunes from mineral sand mining. Tourism offers the only viable alternative to governments still willing to open any land to miners, despite knowing the ultimate consequences of their actions. Already guests at one hotel can look over at a collapsing dune system, the safety fence now only metres away from the beer garden that looks across to the sun setting over the ocean and may be their single most important reason for patronizing the place. It isn’t preposterous, long term residents say, to think that in twenty years time this place will be uninhabitable.
These photographs were taken with Nikons and the Mamiya RB67 loaded with fine grain film, FPP ISO 12 in a couple of examples, Adox 20, Rollei RPX25 and Ilford PanF50., the film stocks best able to capture the rough, natural texture of the dunes, which itself exposes the vulnerability of the system.
