Richard Bennett clicks with the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race
by Peter Campbell on 6 Jan 2010
Kialoa III Richard Bennett
www.richardbennett.com.au
When award-winning Tasmanian photographer Richard Bennett flew out of Hobart's Cambridge airport early on the morning of 28 December 2009 he was on his way to cover the annual Sydney Hobart Yacht Race for the 35th consecutive year.
What is probably also unique, all his photographs of the famous ocean race have been aerial pictures, many depicting the most dramatic moments as storm-battered yachts and their crews battled huge waves in Bass Strait and the Tasman Sea.
Bennett flew up the island's east coast hoping to get some action as the three leading 100-footers battled for line honours in the 65th Rolex Sydney Hobart Race. While the winds may have been light and flukey, Bennett, as always, captured the mood of the ocean and the yachts upon it.
'My first race was in 1974 when Bucaneer took line honours,' Bennett said this week, recalling that in the first years he photographed the fleet using a Kodacolour negative film in a Rollex 6x6 camera.
'I started out as a professional photographer in the 1960s whilst bushwalking in south-western Tasmanian and with the Australian Andean climbing expedition; my first aerial photos were taken when I flew into Lake Pedder and the Western Arthur Lake.'
In 1974 Richard took a scenic flight from Hobart along the Tasmanian east coast and during the flight he took a few photographs of the approaching Sydney Hobart fleet. People liked what his photographs of yachts, sea and cliffs, so in 1975 Richard decided to photograph all the fleet.
He flew out of Flinders Island, down to Maria Island and into Hobart. He captured breath-taking photographs of the record breaking Kialoa III and an institution was born.
Richard Bennett has now photographed 35 Sydney Hobart yacht races and his web site www.richardbennett.com.au has now posted the 2009 collection. Of course, he is now using digital cameras rather than film.
This year's images again capture the mood of the Tasman Sea, but it was a relatively calm race with none of the drama that Richard and, in recent years, his daughter Alice, have captured. Alice took the dramatic photograph of the 34-footer AFR Midnight Rambler under storm sails as she battled her way south to win the storm-ravaged 1998 Sydney Hobart.
Richard usually photographs the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race from the Sydney Harbour start on Boxing Day down the New South Wales coast across Bass Strait and down the Tasmanian Coast to Tasman Island, Storm Bay and, finally, the River Derwent. This gives him plenty of scope to capture all aspects of the ocean race, including the classic Tasmanian coastline such as Tasman Island and Cape Raoul which provide a spectacular backdrop to his images of small yachts battling the seas.
He is the author of many books, ranging from the wilderness of south-west Tasmania to ocean yacht racing. Two of his outstanding yachting books, with text by yachting journalist Bob Ross, have been 'The 50th Sydney Hobart - Ocean Racing Classic' and 'Ocean Classic' also with text by Bob Ross. The latter includes his famous picture of Starlight Express leaping out of the water in the 1986 Sydney Hobart along with striking photos of Maatsukyer Island and Port Davey in the south-west.
Richard also took the pictures for 'The Photographer, The Cook and The Fisherman', a book written by Hobart fishing and seafood restaurant identities Jill and George Mure, with many real stories of Tasmanian fishing, from catching to cooking the products of the sea around the coast of the island state. Richard's photos make them mouth-watering dishes - try the recipes for golden tiger flathead or the baked striped trumpeter fillets on skordalla with a red wine and veal glaze. They are superb samples of Tasmanian seafood.
Richard and daughter Alice collaborated another fine book 'Islands of Tasmania' while Alice and Georgia Warner have produced the best-selling 'Country Houses of Tasmania' which takes readers behind the closed doors of many of the finest colonial estates in the State.
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