Two-month 'hunt' for the perfect kangaroo photo (2025)

Frenchman Florent Goy wanted to get as far away from home when he graduated university.

So, he traded the snowy peaks of the French Alps for the searing heat of the Australian outback.

But before he jumped on a flight, he decided to pick up a camera, thinking that he would teach himself how to take photos.

"It started here in Australia," Mr Goy said.

Now the 25-year-old has an exhibition of his 2024 summer in a regional gallery in Cloncurry, a small Queensland town about three hours east of the Northern Territory border.

Mr Goy said an obsession with a kangaroo photo helped drive his new passion.

The architecture graduate said he ventured into the bush on and off for two months to get the shot he had in mind.

"It was so hard to take, because they're so wild."

Long road to Cloncurry

Landing in Sydney in 2022, Mr Goy travelled through Tasmania, Brisbane and Cairns, before a working holiday visa requirement sent him to explore the furthest reaches of Queensland.

"I really didn't know anything about Cloncurry before that," he said.

After landing a housekeeping job in the local caravan park, Mr Goy said he didn't know if he should have been worried about getting bored or excited in the desert solitude.

He quickly fell in love with the town.

"I was impressed about the landscapes," he said.

His first rodeo

In the six months he spent in the Cloncurry, Mr Goy said he aimed to capture the fullness of outback life.

"[It's] a bit like a documentary to show to people that something else can exist very far away … you can share it," he said.

"I think there is a richness around us everywhere, even in a small town like Cloncurry."

Being invited to his first "barbie" and dodging freshwater crocs in the local dam were highlights.

As was his first rodeo — an outback pastime nowhere to be found in the French Alps.

"I wanted to go there every weekend," he said.

Alongside his new-found friends, and bolstered by a beer or two, the adrenaline of the rodeo gave him the perfect arena to take some cracker shots.

"It's very intense," he said.

"That's a very special thing that we don't have [in France]."

'I want to know more about this culture'

Mr Goy said his self-taught photography helped him connect with Darryl Oliver, a friend he made during his travels.

He said Mr Oliver, a Kuku Yalanji and Waanyi man, taught him about his Aboriginal culture.

"I asked him, 'I want to know a bit more about this culture, because I didn't know a lot'.

"And he said to me, 'OK, we can do a shoot.'"

"We went through the bush, and so he was with the didgeridoo, and he explained to me a lot of things during this small journey."

Mr Goy, who is now back home in France, said his time in the outback changed him forever.

"I think I learned more in this journey than in 10 days in a museum," he said.

"I'm very different now."