This image won TNT Australia magazine’s April 2001 prestigious Photo of the Month award. Given the huge readership and submissions they were no doubt bombarded with on a weekly basis, it’s no mean feat. Yet I was selected as Australia’s premiere travel photographer in May, too. That’s a record that still stands, as far as I know.

Bemusingly, the magazine featured my photograph alongside comments made by their in-house “professional” photographer, whose main assignment, as far as one could tell, was to shoot images of drunken backpackers in various states of undress. Tom was his name. As I recall, he claimed I had “oversaturated the colours to an unnatural level”. I maintain the colours are as shot on the day. 

The photo itself was taken on the sewerage swept shores of St Kilda beach, Melbourne – one of those right place at the right time situations. There I was, cursing the fact my lack of telephoto lens made it impossible to get a close up on just the model. Just as I was about to walk around to the pontoon and pretend to take photos of the ocean, however, along the sand shuffled this rotund old lady. The sight of her back fat juxtaposed nicely with the model’s smooth–skinned perfection.

My only regret is the seagull which swooped into frame at the last minute to steal the rolly polly woman’s unguarded kebab. If it wasn’t for that bird, the tattoo on her left calf of Barry Gibb would be visible.