"I guess it was the only thing I tried that I liked doing that I was good at…um, if that makes sense."

After just 20 minutes sitting on the porch with Mark it's clear that this 20 something, quiet, self confessed big kid with an oversized novelty body is one of a kind. His photos are just starting to come out of hiding from the depths of his backpack and into exhibitions and on his web page, something that he says was just a progression from "handing a few hundred photos to people and saying 'do you want to see my photos" he says with a laugh.

"My dad got me my first SLR camera for my 20th birthday, I can remember having the lens and body in each hand and not having the faintest idea of how to put them together." Now a few years later he’s got his favourite photos hanging on the wall, showing the good times from roaming around the world to the secret waves he's found around his home town in South Australia.

"I was so scared. The first time driving in America on the wrong side of the road and I had the manager of the hire car company sitting next to me. First corner I tried to indicate to turn right or something, but the windscreen wipers flew in front of my face… felt a little stoopid (laughs). Drove like 8000 kilometers to Alaska in 13 days, all solo. Pretty fun trip, but real tiring."

He’s just returned from an around the world "wander", started off partying in California with friends, then drove the monstrous drive to Alaska seeing the entire west coast of America and Canada, "but then I ran out of money. Worked in Canada for a while, then bailed through London and Canary Islands before returning to Australia with a maxed out credit card and no job. "All good now though."

As we watch the sun set over the bay in front of us, he gets a little jittery. A self confessed trigger happy photographer, he used to take photos of everything and anything, but now he's getting a little tired of the same old outdoor set-ups. "I want to tell a story through my photos, more than it saying 'well gee, that looks nice'. So after wasting a month sleeping on Doops' couch in California I decided to go back to school." Currently studying journalism back in Australia, he's trying to get a foot in the photojournalism door. His dream job is to be sent on assignment to cover a story through the photos, write the article, design the layout and "read it aloud to people as they eat their breakfast (laughs). Nah I just want to take the photos and use my sight to make people stop and look."

I ask him about his life back home and it sounds like a lie.
"I work on fishing boats to earn enough money to explore the coastline for waves with a few friends on our days off, but when winter comes I head for the sun. Apart from Canada and Alaska I haven't had a winter in about 4 years. Just always go to the Gold Coast or Byron, somewhere warm. But yeah, where I live is my favourite place out of everywhere I've been for sure. I love it," he says with a smile.

A few stray questions about girls and he noticeably withdraws, he met a girl last year in Canada and fell for her pretty hard, "but I had to leave, had to get out of winter. I was so pale from lack of sun and I kept emoing out all the time, just wasn't myself. I was washing dishes in a really fun restaurant for $7 an hour, working so much just to try to get a bit of money together to try and pay off my credit card after the Alaska trip, met some cool people though, but pretty much all the money I earnt was going straight on food and rent...while my credit card was gaining interest. I felt like I was living in the 30's during the depression. No money, walking 3 miles to work every day in two foot of snow, minus 15 degrees with the wind-chill, and yeah, I just had to get back to Australia. It was the hardest decision hey, when I said I was leaving she formed so much hatred for me, like broke my heart and didn’t talk to me for the rest of the time I was there, we hardly even said goodbye. So hard hey."

In the whole interview this was the first time I didn't see him smile, proof of the hurt he feels inside. Kid got heart.

With the mosquitoes buzzing too close to my ears for comfort we retire inside for a sample of his work. I’m bombarded by literally four hundred 6x4 prints, the pile’s huge, and all he can do is laugh, "this is why I need a web page." Flicking through the select 'few' I stop at what turns out to be his favourite photo to date. It's a black and white photo of a surfer punting an air on a head high wave, with a lighthouse and rocky outcrop in the background. "I kind of visualised this one before I even got there, so stoked it turned out hey. It's in Canada, their version of Byron Bay, a full on hippy, small, tourism sustained town, on Vancouver Island. I heard about the place and just showed up there after getting bummed out in the big city (Vancouver), didn’t know where the surf spots were or if anyone even surfed there, so I just walked around for a few days and had a look. I was there for 10 days and didn’t see any good surfers or waves, but I had heard that a sponsored rider lived close by and his friend worked in one of the surf shops in town, after a bit of snooping I found out what car he drove and um.. (pauses) I pretty much stalked this guy on the last day I was there (laughs). I sat in the café next door to the surf shop for about two hours before I saw his car pull up, he was there to pick up his girlfriend or something I can't remember but I overheard him saying where he was gonna go surf, so um...I ran out to the road and hitched a ride to that beach before he got there. Hid in the bushes and shot for over three hours and yeah, it all worked out in the end. Spent the whole ferry ride back to the mainland going through the photos and this is the only one that I liked. So stoked on it though."

After spending a few hours with Mark I'm sure it’s this determination to hide in random bushes and stalk pro surfers, or drive 8000 kilometers solo that's going to propel him into the scene with his photos, he wouldn’t show me any of his writing because "it's not ready yet and my journal's mine, like you probably wouldn’t understand it anyway (laughs)". When he finds his niche in the industry, keep an eye out for him.

This kid's not going to fade away.