10, 957 days. But it feels like one crowded hour.

October 6, 2026 — 5:00pm

And that’s it. The curtain has come down on Clayfield Studio.

10.957 days or thirty years ago today, on October 6, 1996, I opened the doors of my own full time photographic studio.

It was also my last official day at MAX Instruments, although I have to confess that I didn't actually go to work that day!

There is a lovely little connection between that day and today that I have carried with me for all these years.

The Sunday before I left MAX, the company held a farewell Sunday lunch for me at a local restaurant. At the end of the lunch, I was presented with a gold pocket watch by Max. Inside the cover is engraved: “Mark Taylor Photographer October 6 1996”

I still have that watch.

And today, exactly 30 years later, it marks the end of one of the most extraordinary chapters of my life.

For 30 years I have had the privilege of earning a living doing something I have loved for more than half a century.

Photography has taken me into some wonderful places and introduced me to an extraordinary number of people. I've photographed people, businesses, products, machines, weddings, places and stories — and along the way I've learnt an enormous amount, made plenty of mistakes, had some wonderful successes and accumulated a lifetime of memories.

Most importantly, I've met some truly wonderful people.

So to all of my clients, past and present, I simply say thank you.

Thank you for trusting me with your businesses, your people, your products and your memories. I have always understood what a privilege that was.

To my friends, colleagues and fellow professional photographers, thank you for your friendship, encouragement, advice, assistance and support over the years. The photographic industry has given me far more than a career. It has given me friendships that I will value for the rest of my life.

And to everyone who has recommended me, sent work my way, stopped by the studio, followed my work or simply encouraged me along the way — thank you too.

I deliberately chose my final photographic assignment.

As George Martin did with In My Life, why leave something this important to chance?

My last job was photographing Stephen Hart, a Brisbane sculptor whose extraordinary work includes his artistic creation of the WW2 PBY Catalina.

Stephen was also my very first friend — back in 1956.

So I thought that was a pretty good way to finish.

At the end of trade today there was no final job booked. No frantic rush to pack the car. No huge production to organise.

At 5:00pm, the curtain came down.

But I'm not quite disappearing from photography.

I will still happily undertake the occasional small job for past clients through until June 30, 2028.

There will simply be no more big projects. These days, lighting equipment, camera cases and all the other bits and pieces required for a major shoot are becoming a little too heavy to lug around! Plus there are lots of places to visit on my GSA.

Thirty years.

When I look back, I realise just how incredibly fortunate I have been.

To have spent 30 years running my own studio, doing something I love, surrounded by wonderful people and with a camera in my hands — I couldn't have asked for much more.

And so, tonight, I'll probably take one last look at that old gold pocket watch.

“Mark Taylor Photographer October 6 1996”

Thirty years later, the watch has finally reached its other end.

I'm not sad.

I'm grateful.

What a wonderful ride it has been.

Thank you all.

Mark

Mark Taylor Photography  - 1973 - 1996 

Clayfield Studio - 1996 – 2026

Looking forward to spending more time in the outback with MAX-11

Sometimes something calls and when you answer, you get an experience.

The old mining town of Cracow, Queensland has always had a pull on me.

It’s not just the gold, or the history—it’s something harder to explain. A feeling, perhaps. The kind of place that doesn’t quite let go once it gets under your skin.

I first heard about it back in 1983. A chap who had just bought the Cracow Hotel wandered into MAX Instruments looking for alcohol vapour industrial thermometers. Our counter man, Chris, got talking to him and decided he’d head out there over Easter for a look.

He came back raving about the place.

That stuck.

A couple of decades later, in 2006, my brother Max and I finally made the trip. Proper explore. Dust, silence, old timber buildings leaning slightly into time. Max made quick friends with the local dogs—as you do out there—and the pub stood exactly as you’d hope it would. Solid. Weathered. A centrepiece that had outlived the boom that built it.

Max meets the hounds of Cracow

Cracow hounds don't like the Hyundai

It was a good car for out here. AWD and raised suspension.

Then in 2012 I convinced my mate Gregor we should take the bikes out. Another run, another look, another excuse really. Cracow doesn’t need much of an excuse.

The DR650 and the KLR650 outside the pub

And now, here we are in 2026, and it’s calling again.

This time it’s just me. A solo run with my German mistress—Maxine. (MAX-11.)

I camped Saturday night at Eidsvold, Queensland. A quiet evening, the sort that sets you up for a good ride. Sunday morning delivered—clear skies, that dry Queensland light—and after about ninety kilometres of the big boxer singing her delightful tune, there it was again, Downtown Cracow.

Great steaks at this hotel in Eidsvold the night before.

Being Sunday, I was early. The pub doesn’t open until eleven, and Cracow without the pub open is something else entirely. Still. Almost watching you.

Sign says, do not sit on the verandah when pub is closed.

So I wandered across to the little park and cemetery with the camera. They have a lawn mower tree there.

The famous Cracow lawn mower tree

And that’s when the place shifted.

You read the names. You always do. But this time they seemed to read back.

Men who came chasing gold and never went home. One who survived the trenches of World War I—made it through all that horror—only to die here, underground, years later. A couple who returned from World War II and met the same end. And then the young one… 1989. Not history. Not really. Close enough to now to feel uncomfortable.

Standing there, on a perfect sunny morning, it hits you.

This wasn’t just a gold town. It was a hard place. A place that took as much as it gave.

And maybe that’s where the stories come from.

I wondered about their families when they get the news.

To survive the great war and then this...

So young, just a boy.

Because if you spend any time at the Cracow Hotel—especially if you stay the night—you’ll hear them. Footsteps when no one’s there. A presence in the hallway. The sense that someone is just out of sight, moving through the building as if it were still 1937 and the bar was three deep with miners on payday.

Imagine this bar three deep on a Friday night

Mongoose V snake. Not tired, just stuffed

No one tells it quite the same way twice, but the thread is always there: the town never really emptied out.

It just got quieter.

Standing in that cemetery, camera in hand, I felt something I hadn’t on the earlier trips. Not fear. Not even unease.

Just a kind of veiled sadness.

This was my third visit, and for the first time I wasn’t just looking at Cracow—I was feeling it. Here I am, still riding, still wandering, at an age many of those men never reached… and the day is bright, warm, almost perfect.

Sign post to weird places.

And yet the place carries its past so lightly you could almost miss it—if you didn’t stop long enough to listen.

Cracow does that.

It waits.

And every now and then, it calls you back.