This photograph is an artistic interpretation of the brief. The mermaid is clinging onto the dead tree, surrounded by dry bushland... a water figure displaced by the changing climate around her. There is obvious anguish and desperation to her plight... I wonder too, when we will start to cling to the familiar as we realise what we have done to the world around us. I have deliberately over-exposed the mermaid to effectively 'blind' the viewer from her emotional state - a certain wake up call for all of us. This was shot in outback central Queensland Australia where the summer temperatures often exceed 45 degrees celsius and where cattle die from the heat and recurrent droughts.