Statement
This is a shot from Leith’s series, SHEAR. Last Summer, Leith travelled throughout WA taking photos of sheep shearers, rouseabouts and wool pressers. An iconic, yet somewhat invisible subculture, Leith grew up around shearing and wanted to share it with a wider audience. Consider her project a form of cultural exchange from country to city. Brayden: "I was in a shearing shed and one of my mates was like, 'you wanna haircut?' and I was like 'yeah alright' and he cut it with a handpiece. A few mates helped me fix it up a bit over a couple of months and I’ve just maintained it since then. "When I was rousing, one of the sheds had a heap of puppies. Zeus ran up to me while I was working so I said I would take him. The name Zeus just popped into my head."
Leith Alexander is a digital producer from the Wheatbelt, WA. She specialises in storytelling through podcasting and photography and is particularly interested in stories from rural and regional Australia. In December 2020, Leith was awarded a $15 000 Resilience Grant from Regional Arts WA to complete her project, SHEAR. Leith spent five weeks travelling around rural WA, taking photos of sheep shearers, roustabouts and wool pressers at shearing sheds. The work was then exhibited in both the Wheatbelt and Perth. “Mullet Magic” from the series was selected as a finalist in the 2021 National Photographic Portrait Prize and is currently on display at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra.