Cooks River/Goolay’yari, infrared is an ongoing photographic study of the Cooks River, Sydney. The river is named after Captain Cook, though its traditional name is thought to have been Goolay’yari, meaning ‘pelican river’. Its waters flow through the lands of the Bediagal, Wangal and Gadigal peoples of the Eora Nation. The once beautiful river system has been heavily altered in the time since colonisation; its course has been changed, and much of the river and its feeder creeks concreted to channel 100 square kilometres of urban stormwater into Botany Bay.

Captured using a full-spectrum converted camera and infrared filter, the foliage surrounding the river is rendered ghostly pale, the chlorophyll in plants reflecting infrared in a manner similar to light on snow. These otherwise familiar landscapes take on an otherworldly cast, bringing to light the disparities between banal urban infrastructure and fecund natural growth.