Two shearers, 290 ewes and a 41-degree day? No problem

This image of Victorian shearer Ben Rankin and his mate Paul taking a well-earned break is a favourite finalist in the Galah Regional Photography Prize. What’s the story behind it?

Hard yakka: Paul and Ben on their lunch break. Picture: Ellie Marinakis

It was a 41-degree day in January, and the two of them had nearly 300 ewes to shear in this shed at Werrimull in the far northwest of Victoria. “No air-conditioning,” laughs 28-year-old Ben Rankin, on the right. “We each had a fan and a sweat towel, but it was impossible to stay cool.” Still, he and his mate Paul are seasoned professionals: after limbering up at 7.30am they’d got right into it, with Slim Dusty and Elvis cranked up on the boom-box. And after lunch they crashed out on the boards like this, grabbing 20 minutes of shuteye before the afternoon shift began. Photographer Ellie Marinakis, who was on the farm that day shooting family photos for the owner, popped her head through the shed door to say hi to Ben – they’re brother and sister – and snapped this lovely image, a finalist in the Galah Regional Photography Prize.

Ellie and Ben grew up on the family’s 6000-acre farm at Werrimull, where they grow wheat, barley, lentils and ­lupins. A few years ago Ben did an apprenticeship as an ­electrician (“Good to have a trade under your belt,” he says), but then decided he would much prefer a life spent on the land; he now juggles shearing with working on another ­sister’s Dorper sheep stud. Ellie, too, has come full-circle after spending years as a vet nurse in Mildura, working mostly with pets, then undertaking an epic three-year road trip around Australia with her husband; she now runs her own business photographing families and station life on ­remote properties. Ben, Ellie and their sister still regularly return to the family farm to help out their parents when there’s sowing, spraying and harvesting to be done. (Ellie’s favourite job? Operating the giant harvester machine.)

It was past 5pm on this stinking hot day in January when Ben and Paul sheared the last of the 290 ewes. Ben doesn’t even use a sling (“I find it gets in the way”), and by the end of the day they were exhausted, as you might imagine. You need a special kind of strength and stamina for this work, he says wryly: “We call it ‘shearing fit’.”

The 2025 Galah Regional Photography Prize exhibition opens at Armidale’s New England Regional Art Museum on April 11. galahpress.com