Rough As Guts

"Rough as Guts" is an old Australian expression with a wealth of meaning- from an expression of admiration, toughness, ingenuity to slapdash and vulgar. Its meaning varies with how it is expressed by the individual; It is widely used as an epithet throughout Australia. This country is in the main still a rough country with a pioneering people. In our photographs we have tried to record the "guts" of the country and its people. It is still rough to us and we say affectionately and without mockery or malice that our country is as "rough as guts", it's a toughness and roughness born out of hardship and necessity-a roughness brought about by the environment itself, resulting in a bare kind of subsistence existence. Out of the "rough as guts" has developed the essential character of the Australian. We have been indeed fortunate to meet up with "rough as guts" people and situations many times. The land and its people that Henry Lawson, Banjo Peterson and others described is still very much alive and will live on in spite of many external influences. This book is a visual extension of the people, things and places they described. Douglass Baglin-Barbara Mullins 1973