If I had to trace my love for photography back to a single image, it would be a framed photograph that hung quietly in my childhood home. A simple boardwalk leading into water, mountains rising beyond. I didn’t understand it at the time, only that it held my attention, day after day.

Years later, as I built my own body of work, I kept returning to that feeling. No matter how many landscapes I photographed, something felt unresolved, as though I was still searching for a frame I hadn’t yet made.

Standing on the edge of Lake Rotoiti, I realised why. The symmetry of the jetty, the softened water, the weight of the mountains and the slow movement of cloud combined into a moment of balance. Drama and stillness existing side by side.

This photograph feels like a quiet full circle. Not an imitation, but a resolution. A landscape I owed to my younger self, finally realised.

Photo by: Bradley Basten