Water finds its level.
‘Inception’, has found its room. Perched at the highest point of a house on a hill - and yet, perfectly settled. In collaboration with Nielsen Jenkins architects, a resting place that holds the same still resonance as the lake it came from.
Featured print: ‘Inception’ 1/10 - 1500mm x 1000mm framed in wenge timber.
Shop prints via link in bio
#VeilObscura #Inception #KatiThanda #SamThies #NielsenJenkins
‘Specula’ - Veil Obscura, 2025.
When the sun cracked over the horizon on Sunday 5th of October 2025, we were 2500 feet above the desert and Kati Thanda - Lake Eyre was slowly illuminating ahead of us. The edges were highlighting like electric pulses flashing the lakes outline. Our pilot banked and circled where the low light reflections offered the most visual interest.
We lined up as the sun’s reflection as it skipped across the lakes surface towards its edge and took the shot just before it disappeared.
Veil Obscura prints now available online via link in bio.
Pre Order Veil Obscura the book via link in bio.
Exhibition open until the end of January 2026 at @newsteadstudios
Exhibition sponsors
@monarchresidences@hutchies1912@margotmckinney
#veilobscura #katithandalakeeyrenationalpark #abstractlandscape #leicasl3
The scale of this year’s rare weather event becomes clear as the large format prints are laid out. Details spread across the surface of Kati Thanda Lake Eyre reveal the extent of the 2025 flood cycle.
Thank you to everyone who has purchased prints and contributed to preserving a record of this rare natural history spectacle.
VEIL OBSCURA exhibition running at @newsteadstudios until the end of January 2026.
Shop prints via link in bio.
#katithandalakeeyrenationalpark #abstractlandscape #leicasl3 #hanemhülephoto #fineartprints
‘Inception’ - Veil Obscura, 2025.
At sunrise, solar energy reflects across the lake surface. The interaction of heat and water forms the foundation of the atmospheric systems that enabled the 2025 flood event.
Available in 3 sizes framed or unframed
Editions of 10
Available to purchase online via link in bio or visit the Veil Obscura exhibition at @newsteadstudios
22 Ross Street Newstead, Qld.
Exhibition Partners
@monarchresidences@hutchies1912@margotmckinney@human.terrain
#veilobscura #katithandalakeeyrenationalpark #abstractlandscape #fineartphotography #leicasl3
‘Strata’ - Veil Obscura, 2025.
This terrain once lay beneath an inland sea, its surface shaped by tides and long forgotten currents. Now it exists as desert, exposed and still for most of its cycle. When floodwaters arrive from the north, the basin fills again and life returns with remarkable speed, as if the landscape retains a memory of its former state. In 2025, Lake Eyre reached its highest level in fifty years, offering a brief reappearance of a world shaped millions of years ago.
Limited edition prints now available via link in bio.
Exhibition @newsteadstudios until late January 2026
Pre order Veil Obscura book via link in bio
#katithandalakeeyrenationalpark #abstractlandscape #aerialphotography #leicasl3 veilobscura
“Installation for Veil Obscura has started at @newsteadstudios . Final adjustments are being made ahead of Thursday’s launch. Looking forward to sharing the work with everyone attending.
Limited edition online print sales available from 12.12.25 via link in bio
Event sponsors
@monarchresidences@hutchies1912@margotmckinney
Veil Obscura captures Lake Eyre’s rare transformation into an inland sea — a once-in-a-generation shift in light, mineral, and water.
Large-format prints were the only way photographer Sam Thies could honour that scale, nuance, and quiet drama.
Limited-edition prints go live December 12. Save the date.
The night before our flight over Kati Thanda Lake Eyre we attempted to reach Halligan Bay for a closer look at the shoreline. The road was heavily corrugated and slow going. What should have taken 45 minutes took an hour to get only half way. We turned back and waited to see the northern chamber from the air the next day.
This shot was taken on the Oodnadatta Track after a long afternoon along Halligan Bay Road.
Lake Eyre has held my fascination for as long as I can remember. Every major flood in the Channel Country sparked the same question, is this the year I travel west to see it come alive?
When record rains arrived in early 2025, I finally committed. We crossed some of Australia’s harshest terrain to reach Kati Thanda, arriving just as the lake began to recede, a brief moment between fullness and return.
The images made during that window form Veil Obscura, a print series and a book created to preserve this year’s rare flood cycle in a tangible and enduring way. It records the shifting systems revealed as water, mineral and light transformed the basin.
This book stands as a physical record of a moment that may not occur again for decades, a way to hold onto an event already dissolving back into stillness.
Pre order the Veil Obscura coffee table book via link in bio.
Photographer Sam Thies (@samthies ) followed the floodwaters 1,500km across Australia to witness something that happens once in a generation.
Veil Obscura captures Kati Thanda Lake Eyre fuller than it’s been since 1974 — a liquid veil of colour sweeping across the desert before vanishing back into silence. Limited edition prints launching December 12.
Learn more via the link in bio.
‘Assimilation’ - Veil Obscura, 2025.
Along the margins of Kati Thanda - Lake Eyre, water is steadily drawn into the land, forming pools, lagoons, eddies and temporary streams. As the basin begins to recede, each element settles into its own pattern, creating a dynamic system shaped by absorption, flow and the underlying mineral structure.
Limited edition print series Opening Night 11.12.25 @newsteadstudios
Veil Obscura coffee table book Pre Order via link in bio
Exhibition partners
@monarchresidences@hutchies1912@margotmckinney
