THE Land photographer Michael Petey has hung up his camera after 35 years at the publication.
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Michael joined the paper in 1979 when the company’s head office was in Edgecliff, Sydney.
He initially worked in the darkroom processing photos, but was soon out on the road telling farmers’ stories through the lens and bringing their faces into each week’s The Land.
Michael, born in the Belgian Congo, became perhaps the best-known Frenchman across the state.
Many farmers have been “snapped” by Michael and in his latter years on the job it wasn’t uncommon for him to have photographed as many as three generations of a single farming family.
The famous Frenchman was known not just for his “The Land style” photos, which helped shape the look of rural reporting – and often had him climbing over saleyards or on his belly in a crop – but in 1999 he took the first digital photo used in The Land, and in 2007 was a Mackellar Media Awards winner.
