About the Collaboration
We’re proud to share our latest collaboration with Emma Cross, an Australian photographer whose work captures the beauty, resilience, and spirit of rural life.
At OBE Organic, our mission has always been to celebrate the people and places behind our certified organic beef. Through partnerships like this one, we shine a light on those who live and work across Australia’s remote and regional communities, individuals whose stories reflect the same care, authenticity, and connection to the land that define our brand.
About Emma Cross
Emma Cross grew up on Victoria’s Bellarine Peninsula, but her heart has always belonged to the countryside. Raised on the land, helping to raise beef and stud cattle, she developed a lasting appreciation for agriculture and rural life.
Her creative journey began during secondary school in the Wimmera region, where she worked in a photography studio capturing weddings and family portraits. That experience revealed the storytelling power of photography, a passion that has shaped her career ever since.
After moving to Melbourne at 19 to work in events management, Emma found herself continually drawn back to the country. Weekends were spent in the Wimmera or Riverina, reconnecting with the wide-open skies and red earth that reminded her where she truly belonged.
Eventually, Emma returned to the Riverina to pursue photography full-time, blending her creative eye with her connection to the land. Though the COVID pandemic delayed her plans, it gave her time to deepen that connection, helping on local farms, learning new skills, and rediscovering the rhythms of rural life.
Today, Emma works with agricultural organisations across Australia while continuing her renowned rural wedding photography. Her images honour the people, landscapes, and stories of those who live and work regionally and remotely, capturing moments that celebrate the heart of country life.
“We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home.”
This Aboriginal proverb resonates deeply with Emma’s philosophy. Through her lens, she captures fleeting moments that honour our shared connection to the land and the people who care for it.
Scattered ruins of the Annandale Homestead, which had first been established in 1876 by Patrick Drinan. It was then purchased by Sidney Kidman (later, Sir Sidney) in 1896, the first of his properties in Queensland. The Annandale lease was later bought by Bill Brook in 1939 and is now part of the much bigger Adria Downs property, one of many owned and run by the Birdsville-based Brook family.
“In the empire of desert, water is the king and shadow is the queen.”
– Mehmet Murat Ildan
“The desert tells a different story every time one ventures on it.”
– Robert Edison Fulton JR
Wildflowers are the loveliest of all because they grow in uncultivated soil, in those hard, rugged places where no one expects them to flourish.
~ Micheline Ryckman
“I think I like wildflowers best. They just grow wherever they want. No one has to plant them. And then their seeds blow in the wind and they find a new place to grow.”
– Rebecca Donovan
David Brook’s grandfather managed Annandale Station for Sidney Kidman in the 1900s.
