David Sproule

Sprouley was the senior photographer in The Australian’s Brisbane bureau when I first started out on the national paper in 1991. He was already a veteran hand and had a fund of yarns about his tabloid days, yarns that involved hiding out for days on end to get the right shot or driving for days on end to make sure the job was done by deadline. Dave was usually more of a character than whoever it was he was photographing.

He was a perfect mentor for a nervous young hack starting out in the game. It was all about the job – there wasn’t a huge amount of ego and no side whatsoever. He always put a subject completely at their ease and more than once came up with the killer question when his reporter (me) was floundering about trying to think of something to ask.

Dave formed a particular bond with the late, great Kevin “Smokey” Meade, who also took redundancy from The Australian last year before passing away tragically young early this year. The pair would go bush for days on end, stumbling across yarns in the unlikeliest places. Kev’s ear and Dave’s eye ensured a constant supply of great rural yarns for the paper.

Sprouley seemed to work for fun – I never heard him grizzle much around the office (and let’s face it, grizzling’s one of our top 10 leisure activities). He’d have been nearing retirement when he took the package, but his passing must surely have left a pretty big hole. You don’t replace a character like that easily.

All the best Dave,
Jonty Este

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