Autumn rain, homebound…
The road home from Brisbane stretches out ahead of me, the hum of the tires against the asphalt syncing with the afterglow of last night’s performance. I’d just seen Nils Frahm at QPAC, part of his global Music For tour, and I’m still caught in the spell of his neoclassical and electronic soundscapes. Frahm has been a major influence on my photography over the years, but lately, I’ve found myself even more drawn to his compositions, his layering of texture and tone, the way he builds atmosphere out of silence as much as sound. It’s the kind of presence I try to bring into my own work behind the lens.
As I drive the Pacific Highway south, heading home, I watch the light gather, building like ink spilling across a page as the clouds drift, soft and shapeless as forgotten thoughts. I feel the pull to leave the highway, to slip into the quiet of the countryside. There’s something about these unscripted detours that draws me in, the anonymity of these roads, places that could be anywhere, existing outside of time. I don’t always know what I’m searching for, only that I’ll recognise it when I find it. It’s an insatiable pull toward something just beyond reach, fleeting yet resonant.
And yet, even in the in-between, I know where I belong.
Returning from the city always feels like coming home—not just in the physical sense, but in the way my body exhales the moment I leave behind the sprawl of steel and glass. The air changes as I slip deeper into the valley, cooler and thick with the scent of damp earth and the last press of sugarcane. Autumn lingers at the edges of everything now, its presence felt in the golden afternoon light, in the way the air sharpens at dusk. The sunlight slants lower, turning the cane fields into rivers of gold, their feathery tips catching the wind like slow-moving tides.
The rain arrives suddenly, breaking the sky open. It sweeps across the road in sheets, turning the bitumen into a mirror of shifting light. There’s something about this kind of rain, heavy and all-consuming, that feels like a baptism—washing away the weight of everything left behind in the city. I drive through it slowly, watching the way the drops bead and streak across the windscreen, the scent of wet asphalt rising, mixing with the sweetness of crushed cane.
I glance across to the passenger seat, where Jess sits in quiet reverie, her gaze lost in the shifting landscape beyond the rain-streaked window. The soft glow of reflected sunlight lights up her face, tracing the contours I know so well. She breathes in deeply, taking in the scent of rain and earth, the sweetness of the cane fields mingling with the cool autumn air. There’s a stillness in her presence, a quiet understanding that words could never match. This is home—not a place, not a destination, but the feeling of being here, together, in the gentle rhythm of the road and the rain.
The rain eases as I merge back onto the highway, the world around me softened by twilight’s hush. The last remnants of daylight dissolve into the horizon, a faint ember swallowed by the evening. Ahead, the red glow of taillights pulse like embers in the dark, a quiet procession leading me home. The road hums beneath me, steady and unbroken, stretching toward the familiar. The city may linger in my mind, its echoes still flickering like distant neon, but it’s here in the rhythm of fading light, the scent of wet earth, and Jess beside me that I know where I belong.
