‘I want people to see nature as a wondrous work of art’: Jon McCormack’s greatest telephone image | Images

Aspherical 10,000 years in the past, Kangaroo Island separated from mainland Australia. As a outcome, species advanced independently – and now the island is house to wildlife discovered nowhere else, together with a soot-coloured dunnart, in addition to, in fact, kangaroos. The human inhabitants right here is so low that there are 14 kangaroos for each one individual.

On the far southern fringe of the island sit Remarkable Rocks: granite kinds carved over time by wind, rain and salt. Jon McCormack took this {photograph} inside one of many boulders overlooking the Southern Ocean, going through in direction of Antarctica.

“It’s a fascinating place that feels both ancient and exposed, shaped by weather and isolation,” says McCormack, who shot this picture at sundown after a day spent exploring the island. “I climbed inside a section of rock that had been hollowed out by erosion and found this composition,” he says. “A suspended, sculptural form of stone hanging over the vastness of the ocean. I think what makes this image work is its graphic simplicity. The line, the horizon and the opening all work together to create the composition, and the hole in the rock gives the energy and tension.”

Western Queensland-born McCormack now lives in northern California, and has spent the final decade photographing patterns in nature throughout seven continents. (His e-book, Patterns: Art of the Natural World, is printed by Damiani this month.) “I want people to see nature as I see it. As a wondrous, intricate and endlessly creative work of art,” he says. “My intention here was to make an image that felt both visually striking and slightly disorienting. The first catches your attention, but the latter asks you to look more carefully – to stay a little longer.”