Concrete Playground

While Peter Elfes’ photographs are spectacularly striking, capturing an entire colour wheel’s worth of natural phenomena, it’s what lies beneath the surface of each image that truly fascinates. Snapping the wonders of South Australia’s Lake Eyre as well as parts of North West NSW, Elfes delivers The Green Desert: a low level, bird’s eye view of the impact water and time have made on the Australian landscape. And though the elements have certainly taken their toll on the land, the beauty we’re left with rivals that of Sydney Harbour and its mainstay attractions.

The images are so bloody gorgeous, they don’t look real. As the lake and other bodies of water transition into land, vibrant lashings of reds as rich as rubies and greens as dazzling as emeralds appear in an almost cartoon-like fashion. You’ll be second-guessing everything you see as Elfes’ infectious appreciation for Mother Nature washes over you. Not surprisingly, he's being recognised for his masterpieces. These snaps won him the NSW Parliamentary Landscape Prize in 2011. Rightly so.

The Green Desert will be showing at Palm House, Royal Botanic Gardens, Mrs Macquaries Road (from 1 February – 28 February) and Customs House, Circular Quay (from 2 February – 28 May).