Grace Lee, SMOKEY Blue Mountains (DOCO 2021)

The Greater Blue Mountains National Park is World Heritage-listed. My home is in the famous Three Sisters in Katoomba. It has been a very difficult from August 2019 to January 2020 over six months for many in Australia after mega-fire continues to burn in Australia. The Gospers Mountain fire raged for 17 days across over 500,000 hectares until it was contained by firefighters in early January. Blue Mountains unique environment and wildlife may 'never recover', expert warns. It could take centuries for the ecosystem to recover after the bush fires - if at all. We have seen a large loss of kangaroos, wallabies, possums, insects and marsupials, and fear relic plant species could be "wiped out". There are certain relic species of plants that are hanging on, like the isopogon fletcheri and the dwarf mountain pine, that could be wiped out by this fire because they have limited distribution. I have taken those dirty smoke, those tragic environmental images in Christmas and New Year break in my home area after bush fires - the SMOKEY Blue Mountains. Sadly most of those wonderful lands will be decimated for years to come - they were just recovering from the 2013 fires. "The difference between a good life and a bad life is how well you walk through the fire" - Carl Jung. "The Creative Habit' is basically about how you work alone, how you survive as a solitary artist. 'The Collaborative Habit' is obviously about surviving with other people." Twyla Tharp.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.