Mike Terry is a photographer and filmmaker based in Armidale, NSW – and damn are we lucky to have him. He earned a BA in Mass Communication from the University of Utah in 2010 and was awarded A Fine Art, Music, Architecture and Dance Graduate Scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service in 2011 through which he earned a Masters in Visual and Media Anthropology at the Freie Universität Berlin. In short, the man has some serious creds. Before relocating to Australia in 2020, he worked as a visual and online producer for the studio of Filmmaker Yulia Mahr and Classical Composer Max Richter in the United Kingdom. Today, Mike creates beauty for commercial and editorial clients on a worldwide scale – from the heart of Armidale. Here, Mike shares his story of how he came to call the New England home.
Photography has been the most constant thing in my life. For the most part, I let it lead and determine where I was and what I was doing.
I started young. My older brother shot fashion and travel where we grew up in Europe and took it with him to the States. My parents and I followed when I was 13 and I got my first job at a newspaper at 16. It exposed me to a world where your job is being ‘there’; wherever, whatever is happening. Learning to be responsive to all these different stories and features every day. I realised quickly it wasn’t about the photo for me, that printed end-result. It was that I loved the situations it was getting me into. I wanted the experiences I was having, the people I was meeting, the worlds I got to dip into.
I’m pretty curious. And nosy. So it serves those characteristics well.
I hustled.
After working in the US with regular assignments abroad, I got back to working in Germany. Eventually, after seven years in Berlin, I met a woman from Uralla – what a cliché! After charmed years in Europe together, just before the pandemic, we decided to relocate to Armidale for the proverbial go at finally growing up and starting a life. It was the first instance where photography and career wasn’t leading my choice or decision, rather an unfamiliar leap, choosing love, partner, family.
I was nervous about starting over, I didn’t know what life and my work was going to look like. After choosing photography for 25 years, it did me a solid and chose me right back. It’s been my total companion – my excuse to meet people and dig into a place. I’m grateful for the opportunities to do art and commercial work in the short time I’ve been here. It’s made me feel unexpectedly close to the region and the people I’ve met so far.
I wasn’t expecting to fall so hard for this place. Especially the commercial work in agriculture has brought back some of those early feelings of discovery and love for my job. Photography was my way to explore the US after we’d arrived. High and dry, horses and cattle dotting the paddocks, rodeo, Friday night football. Makes sense the New England reminds me of that home. It’s a full feeling to be somewhere that draws me outside – mountain biking, skating, surfing.
I don’t want to say there is so much potential here, because it is already something very special. Leaving the house each day, seeing the plants in the yard and colourful birds that scatter at the sound of the door, I’m smitten as hell with what I see when I’m headed to the car.
Steph Wanless
Editorial Director. Grammar-obsessed, Kate Bush impressionist, fuelled by black coffee, British comedy and the fine art of the messy bun.
