Several disasters converged in Australia during the summer of 2020, now known colloquially as “Black Summer.” The first month was marked by devastating brushfire activity in Eastern Australia, followed by intense flooding in many of the same areas that had recently burned, and finally capped by the arrival of COVID-19 in Australia. With her camera, photographer Lisa Sorgini, based in Northern New South Wales, documents her experience of this time, gracefully capturing the delicate tension between beauty and destruction. 

“This chain of catastrophes created a collective anxiety that was palpable as a country,” Sorgini explains, “and as the mother to a newborn son and a curious 4 year old this caused within me an almost non stop sense of fight or flight, the balance of despairing at the devastation but still outwardly remaining positive for my children has never been so difficult.”

See more from “The Bushfire, The Flood, and The Virus” below.