Bob Hawke

As photographers we would all love our work remembered.

For some of us, however, one image can threaten to overshadow a lifetime of work.

This is both hugely flattering and a burden at the same time.

My shot of Bob Hawke at the launch of his campaign to become Australian Prime Minister at the Sydney Opera House in 1983 is one of those images.

I was working, at that time, for the National Times, a weekly, so had to produce something different from photographers working on the dailies. A shot that was strong enough to work days after the event.

I saw the possibility of the shot as soon as I walked into the Opera House. It took a lot of crawling about the floor and three and a half rolls of film to get the one frame where the microphones covered Mr. Hawke’s eyes.