VALE, WARREN CLARKE
On January 27th, 2018 a Facebook post from the Oculi collective shook the Australian photography community. “A heavy heart has fallen on many,” said the post, “with the news of the passing of our dear friend Warren Clarke.” Accompanying the text; a photo of a Mursi tribe member in the Omo Valley of Ethiopia, a view from a taxi window of the holy city of Qom, Iran, and an Afghan amputee considering his new prosthesis in a mirror in Kabul—a visual whirlwind tour of the career of one of Australia’s most celebrated photojournalists and perhaps its most intrepid.
But while Warren Clarke’s career was certainly defined by his seemingly insatiable thirst for travel, his investment in the people he met along the way was far from fleeting. Following Oculi and others’ tributes to Clarke on social media, an unending stream of eulogies quickly poured in. Some of Australia’s most well-known young photographers recalled Clarke’s guidance and kindness that their careers now rested upon, while a spectrum of names and nationalities became testament to Clarke’s legacy and memory that was still very much in the minds of his subjects across various continents. Oculi’s praise for Clarke went on to detail his unmatched role in the formation of the collective—a group that has since become a mainstay of documentary in
