The restored heritage village of Old Petrie Town lies about a 90-minute drive from the farm in Queensland, Australia, where Karen Weideman lives. She and her husband, Michael, were visiting back in 2022 when she took this photo on her iPhone 11. “The town is spread across 48 acres of parkland, and some of the buildings date back to the 1800s. It has markets, museums and galleries; we love to just wander around, taking in the sights,” she says. “You’re also spoiled for choice when it comes to food; we had some incredible chicken satay for lunch. Then it started raining so we began heading home, but we passed these beautiful old buses on the way. Number 77 was a Brisbane city council school bus from the 60s.”
Always on the lookout for new things to photograph, she asked Michael to step inside and pose for her. “He’s for ever patient, and my biggest supporter; he has complete faith in whatever I’m trying to achieve,” she says. She later made some minimal enhancements using the Snapseed app.
While Weideman set out to create a melancholy mood but leave the story open to the viewer’s interpretation, her own feelings towards what she captured that day have changed with time. “Reflecting on this photo, I feel emotional, as my husband now battles stage 4 metastatic melanoma,” she says. “It feels as if he’s trapped behind the glass, reaching out to me, and I can’t stop him as the bus pulls off and his journey begins.”
