Documentary photography at the Port Hedland Seafarers Centre in the Pilbara, where the Mission to Seafarers looks after the international crews who keep the world's largest bulk export port running.
Client: Mission to Seafarers Port Hedland
Where: Port Hedland, WA, on Kariyarra Country
When: May 2025
We made: Photography
Six weeks out, a few hours ashore
The crews on the iron ore carriers out of Port Hedland work six-week round trips between Australia and China. Shore leave is short, contact with home is patchy, and many of them spend months at sea, a long way from their families. About 150,000 seafarers come through the port each year.
The Mission to Seafarers runs the Port Hedland Peace Memorial Seafarers Centre for them. It is a modest place: Wi-Fi, fresh clothes, a pool table, a library, a chapel and someone to talk to. For a lot of the men who walk through the door, it is the only break they get before heading back out.
We sat with seafarers in the drop-in centre and photographed them there. We spent time with the chaplains and volunteers who keep it running, the people who drive crews to and from the ships, deliver care packages and check in on how everyone is coping. We also went out across the harbour to the bulk carriers at berth, to see the ships these men live on.
Port Hedland was one stop on our trip across the Pilbara in May 2025, alongside our work in Jigalong with Pilbara Community Legal Service and with Wirraka Maya Health Service.
Photographs: Ripple Narratives
