Local Stranger, A

Sixty-six-year-old Claude Beach has been travelling Australia for 25 years taking portraits of people in small country towns which have no regular photographer. He lives out of a battered '56 Dodge truck and a caravan - constantly on the move, alone. With no apologies, he calls his mobile business 'Columbia Studios'. The documentary profiles the good-natured loner during a week where he has set up shop in the tiny outback town of Julia Creek (population 450) on the road from Townsville to Mt Isa. A portrait of the artist as a travelling man.