A day that almost wasn’t

A Day in the Life of Australia (ADITLA), released in 1981 was the first in a series of books set in countries across the world, but it almost didn’t happen.

Photographer Rick Smolan had conceived the idea years before but hadn’t been able to get anyone to back the project.

He approached 35 publishers, who all turned him down.

It was an encounter with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser that changed everything. National Geographic was flying Rick in and out of Australia – documenting Robyn Davidson’s nine-month journey on camels across the Australia desert. That story inspired the 2013 film Tracks, starring Mia Wasikowska and Adam Driver as Rick.

Julie Millowick, the photographer who documented Phillip Island for the project explains.

“While he was here, he got a job photographing Malcolm Fraser, who was a photography enthusiast. So Rick pitched the idea to the government.”

Although the Prime Minister said the government couldn’t finance it, he wrote letters of introduction to companies that could help pay for the project, including Qantas. To make it more appealing to sponsors, Rick said ADITLA would include about 10 emerging photographers.

Julie was one of the young photographers selected to take part.

In the end, 110 photographers were enlisted, including 41 Australians. Of those Australia, seven were stringers, brought into the project as freelancers. This included Julie.

She said working on ADITLA didn’t guarantee your work would be published and when the book finally appeared, 11 international photographers along with 16 Australians were not included.

“It was a massive job and really, Rick had never done anything like this before,” she said.

“He didn’t have any money. People were flying in and sleeping on the floor in sleeping bags.”

As the international photographers arrived, they were given assignments.

“The big shot internationals, they really pushed for the places they wanted to go to,” Julie explained.

“Most of them wanted to go to the outback. That’s probably my only, very minor criticism of the book. Most Australians live in cities, but lots of the photos are of people in the outback.”

The stringers got the locations not assigned to the big names, with Julie assigned to cover from Rosebud to Phillip Island.

Once the photos were selected and the book was printed, she said Rick set about trying to get the books into stores.

“He gets all these books printed, but he can’t distribute them, as the publishers have a monopoly.”

This time, it was Fairfax Media that stepped up.

“Rick went to Fairfax, who took it over. They publicised it and sold it through their outlets,” Julie said.

“The book sold 250,000 copies, all thanks to Fairfax. The money from the sales enabled Rick to go on and organise A Day in The Life in other countries.”